Table of Contents
Febrile seizures
Convulsion triggered by a high fever that occurs in young children.
Benign rolandic epilepsy
It characterized by seizures that begin as partial and then progress to tonic-clonic convulsions.
Absence epilepsy
It characterized with momentary lapses of consciousness, often accompanied by jerking arms, lip-smacking and rapidly blinking eyes.
Juvenile myoclonic epilepsy
It is characterized by seizures involving sudden jerking of the arms and legs.
Infantile spasms
This syndrome usually involves seizures in which a baby twiches its arms forward. Babies usually cry after a spasm, and this condition is often mistaken for colic.
Lennox-Gastaut syndrome
Patient with this type of epilepsy syndrome has a severe epilepsy involving several different types of seizures. Atonic seizures are common.
Reflex epilepsies
These seizures are triggered by certain stimuli, most often intense, flickering or flashing light. That’s why this type is also called photosensitive epilepsy.
Sleep and epilepsy
To understand the interactions between sleep and epilepsy, it is important to view the timing of seizures during the circadian sleep-wake cycle, that is, whether the seizures tend to occur during the day (diurnal), during the night (nocturnal) or during the day and the night (random).
Sleep-related epilepsy occurs in a minority of epilepsy patients, anywhere from 10 to 25 percent, although because the patient is asleep, seizure activity is difficult to recognize. The patient may feel tired and fatigued during the day and not know why. Or the physician may recognize a pattern of sleep deprivation symptoms occurring over weeks or months.
Latest researches are indicating that seizure occurrence does seem to have some relation to sleep. The fact is also that several kinds of seizures occur more while asleep than when awake, while others occur with the awakening process. All seizures are said to be uncommon during the REM stage of sleep.
Anyway, there is no doubt that there is a great correlation between epilepsy and sleep. This is mostly because seizures are often precipitated or triggered by the loss of sleep. Seizures can be precipitated in epileptic patients and also in some people, who do not have seizures but have an inherited tendency to seizures.
Sleeping much less than usual is a fairly common trigger for seizures and should be avoided by patients with seizures or a tendency to seizures wherever possible.
Mechanism
The exact mechanism is not understood well. The sleep-wake cycle is associated with prominent changes in brain electrical activity and hormonal activity, so seizures and the sleep-wake cycle are often clearly related. There are also some changes related to the stage of sleep. Some people with epilepsy have all of their seizures while sleeping and others have most of their seizures just as they are falling asleep or just after waking up.