International Epilepsy Day 2024: Meaning, causes, prevention and more

As the World Health Organisation (WHO) states on its official site, epilepsy is a non-communicable neurological disease that affects around 50 million people across the world. In epilepsy, the affected individual gets recurrent seizures, sometimes in a brief episode that consists of involuntary movement. It sometimes gets critical when people get unconscious and lose control of bowel and bladder functions.

Epilepsy is a non-communicable disease. Different factors lead to or cause epilepsy. These categories include structural, genetic, infectious, metabolic, immune, and unknown.

Some of the most common causes are brain damage from prenatal or perinatal reasons; congenital abnormalities or genetic conditions with associated brain malformations; a severe head injury; a stroke; certain genetic syndromes; and a brain tumour.

However, the symptoms of epilepsy can have the characteristics of seizures depending on the region in the brain where the disturbance first starts, and how far it spreads. There are temporary symptoms such as loss of awareness or consciousness, and disturbances of movement, sensation (including vision, hearing, and taste), mood, or other cognitive functions.

According to the World Health Organisation, as much as 25% of epilepsy cases are potentially preventable. It involves certain criteria, such as preventing head injury, taking adequate perinatal care, and avoiding the use of drugs or other methods that create hallucinations.