Epilepsy Disease and Health Communication

Communication: Disease (Epilepsy)

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (2021) stated that more than 1 million older adults in the US have epilepsy- a disease mainly known as a seizure-inducing disorder. Why am I telling you this? Let me explain after my introduction.

Greetings, my name is XYZ, and I am related to the selected topic in a unique way. I was closely connected to my grandmother, who was suffering from epilepsy. She was living with us, and I had visually experienced her problems, which affected me psychologically. I was even more disturbed for quite some time after her death.

Epilepsy has different symptoms in young adults compared to older generations. Lee (2019) asserted that it could be due to different body conditions and non-specific characteristics of the diseases that affect every individual differently. It makes the diagnosis of the illness hard even for the specialists leading to even harder treatment procedures that must be specific for each patient. I will explain why the incidence of this disease is higher in older adults that require deeper probing into the knowledge of signs and future treatments that would revolve around controlling epileptic seizures.

Liu et al. (2016) cited a finding by the International League Against Epilepsy in 2010 that there are three main classifications of this illness: genetic, structural, or metabolic, and an unidentified reason. All of the causes apply to older adults who might be experiencing seizures due to one. More than 50% of older adults have been found to have one of these etiological causes. However, with the recent global changes in diseases due to several environmental, climatic, and social changes in lifestyles, new onset of symptoms have been witnessed that cause a risk of cerebrovascular illness in more than 30% of the elderly population (Liu et al., 2016). Most of the related symptoms of epilepsy in this population segment are nerve cell degeneration, stroke lesion, gliosis surrounding the lesion, and glial scar creation (Liu et al., 2016).

As mentioned previously, symptoms in older people differ from those in the younger population, and the incidence rate is higher in the older generation; certain careful parameters need to be taken for their treatment. Lee (2019) emphasizes that the prevailing challenges, apart from identifying correct symptoms among the elderly, three treatment issues have been observed: concerns about adverse drug effects, alterations in pharmacokinetic parameters, and polytherapy. Clearly, with an appropriate diagnosis that might be difficult with the three categories mentioned earlier of symptoms, medical experts need to be extra vigilant of the history of medications while devising a treatment for epilepsy. For example, a person taking medicine for high blood pressure might be easily vulnerable to drugs in complex ways. In such cases, medicines would do more harm than, which is undeniably not an ethical practice in medicine. The early onset of initial seizures and how much time the patient shows the next signs of the seizures need to be monitored closely to make a final decision about the severity of seizures along with an accurate treatment plan (Lee, 2019).

The global medicinal challenges, especially after Covid-19 has imposed more burden on the medical experts to deliver high-quality care to the elderly population suffering from epilepsy and particular forms of dementia. Recently, Kim et al. (2020) research revealed that Electroencephalogram or EEG is the most common and effective method of detecting seizures’ frequency and severity in epileptic patients. They comprise two categories of recording seizures, which are interictal and ictal (Kim et al., 2020). Seo et al. (2020) believe that in terms of pharmacological treatment, with old age, renal absorption of medicines formula along with slow metabolism and distribution affect the way medicine could affect their body. Progressive aging causes hindrance in the use of appropriate anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs) (Seo et al., 2020). Thus, minimizing the risk of adverse effects becomes more and more serious in this stage.

I came up with this topic since older adults are people over 65 years and our households certainly have one. The symptoms, and complexities of different body conditions, especially in the elderly, in contrast with children and young adults, and treatment options after accurate diagnosis are critical factors for creating a change for old epileptic patients, just like my grandmother. It is alarming that epilepsy prevalence in older people is three times higher than in children (Seo et al., 2020). We should be aware of and prioritize this issue to save the worldwide elderly population, even if it comes to providing them with home care and attention. Their physical and psychological needs are to be met each time, so mindful strategies with knowledge and precautions could work better than pharmacological or therapeutic interventions.