Predicting Seizures: What Does This Mean?

Some people report that they know when a seizure may be coming. They can tell by symptoms that they feel or situations that may make them more likely to have a seizure. The article by Drs. Haut and colleagues underscores the importance of clinical research in epilepsy. The researchers took a general observation from people with epilepsy and wanted to know how often it happened and how helpful or reliable the self-reported predictions were. This type of research can be enormously helpful to people with epilepsy and their families by finding answers to important questions such as:

• Can people learn to predict when a seizure may occur?
• If so, could a medication or device be used during this time to stop the seizure from happening?

What does ‘self-prediction’ of seizures mean?

Being able to predict a seizure means a person could tell in advance if a seizure may occur. The hallmark of epilepsy is that seizures have always been considered unpredictable. Advances in EEG and engineering are changing that concept as ways of predicting seizures by EEG activity and other physical markers are being developed. Adding self-predication to these markers may open up other avenues for treating seizures.

For many years, behavioral research and anecdotal reports in epilepsy have been looking at seizure triggers and ways to avoid, abort or prevent seizures, but easy to use and reliable markers of impending seizures could make these approaches easier to test.

How could a person with epilepsy tell if a seizure may occur?

• Feeling symptoms that tend to occur consistently minutes or hours before a seizure.
• Having a more vague feeling of a seizure coming – many people just describe this as feeling ‘seizurey.’
• Identifying triggers that let them know they are more susceptible to seizures at the time.

How can a person tell if the feelings can help predict seizures?

• Short of being in a research study, a simple way to look at this would be to track all episodes ‘seizurey’ feelings or other symptoms.
• If you were looking at specific triggers, you would need to track all the times these may occur.
• Then track when all seizures occur and their relationship to the other feelings or triggers.
• To know if these were related, you’d have to look at how often the ‘seizurey’ feelings, other symptoms or triggers were present prior to the seizure. Showing this data to your doctor or health care provider can help you look at the associations in more depth.
• Many people report being able to change their symptoms by changing triggers, situations or performing a behavioral intervention. People who find reliable triggers or symptoms prior to a seizure may want to explore ideas like this with their health care team. It’s not hard to do, but you do need to make a commitment to trying it consistently.

If you’ve been doing this and have results to share, post in ecommunities at www.epilepsyfoundation.org!

Have a great week!