Understanding neurological disorders

Epilepsy is a brain disorder in which people experience ‘seizures’ – sudden surges of electrical activity in the brain. During a seizure, most people will experience changes in awareness and how they sense things, from ‘spacing out’ to completely losing consciousness. Physical symptoms are common, including difficulty talking, tremors, and convulsions. Some seizures have mild symptoms and may initially be hard to notice, whereas others are completely disabling. Depending on the type, a seizure can last from a few seconds to several minutes.

There are many known causes of seizure, such as inherited conditions and brain injuries, though in most cases no cause can be identified. There are also different types of epilepsy ‘syndromes’ – groups of features that occur together. Lennox–Gastaut syndrome is a rare but severe type of epilepsy that emerges during childhood. The person’s seizures cause them to stiffen or go limp, and they will require lifelong treatment. Dravet syndrome is a rare, inherited type of epilepsy that typically starts within the first year of life. Seizures can be triggered by a fever, or even by a slight change in body temperature.

Epilepsy is a disabling condition that can affect a person’s safety as well as their ability to function at work or school. For example, people with epilepsy are at high risk of having a traffic accident, and in most cases they should not drive. In some people who experience repeated, severe or prolonged seizures, epilepsy can cause damage to the brain.

Get a deeper understanding of Lennox–Gastaut syndrome here.

Movement disorders are associated with abnormal and involuntary movements. Broadly, movement disorders can be split into those where the affected person moves too much (e.g., Tourette syndrome or Huntington’s disease), and those where the affected person moves too little (e.g., Parkinson’s disease or multiple system atrophy). 

Parkinson’s disease is a long-term and progressive brain disease that mostly occurs in the elderly. It causes tremor, slowness of movement, stiffness, and balance problems, as well as a large group of symptoms that are not related to movement (e.g., pain, mental health issues, and problems with thinking and memory). 

Movement disorders are a source of stigma and can interfere with an individual’s ability to function in daily life. 

Get a deeper understanding of Parkinson’s disease here.

Pain is an unpleasant sensation that can occur acutely (e.g., after bruising or breaking a bone) or chronically (e.g., after a back injury or stroke). Sometimes, there is no obvious cause of pain. Different people experience pain in different ways, and there is also an emotional component, whereby the pain that is felt changes according to a person’s mood. 

Headache is pain that occurs in the head. Headaches are extremely common, and can be ‘primary,’ such as migraine, tension-type headache and cluster headache, or ‘secondary,’ meaning that they are a consequence of another disorder. Migraine is associated with strong headaches that are usually accompanied by nausea and/or sensitivity to light and sound. During a migraine attack, which can last for hours or days, a person is unable to go about their daily life. Tension-type headaches are, in general, milder and not associated with nausea while cluster headaches are a relatively rare and extremely painful type of headache usually felt around a person’s eye or temple.

Get a deeper understanding of migraine here.