Epilepsy is a chronic neurological condition characterized by recurrent seizures that are caused by abnormal cerebral nerve cell activity. There is a distinction between a patient who has one seizure and a patient who has epilepsy. Epilepsy can be classified as either idiopathic or symptomatic.
Idiopathic epilepsy has no known cause, and the person has no other signs of neurological disease or mental deficiency. Symptomatic epilepsy results from a known condition, such as stroke, head injury, poisoning, Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, and cerebral palsy.
Incidence and Prevalence
More than 2 million people in the United States and over 50 million worldwide suffer from epilepsy. In the United States, more than 300,000 people with epilepsy are under the age of 14, and more than 500,000 are over the age of 65.
Physician-developed and -monitored.
Original Date of Publication: 01 Feb 2002
Reviewed by: Gordon R. Kelley, M.D., Stanley J. Swierzewski, III, M.D.
Last Reviewed: 01 Aug 2008
Epilepsy/Seizures, Overview, Incidence and Prevalence reprinted with permission from neurologychannel.com
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