Epilepsy

Epilepsy is a neurological condition that tends to cause people to have seizures. There are lots of different types of seizure and these can be caused by a number of different triggers. Each person's symptoms is individual to them. It is essential to get to know the person & to understand their own seizure pattern in order to successfully support & manage their epilepsy. For example not all seizures involve convulsions, some people experience more than one type of seizure & these seizures can alter in length of time & in the way the person reacts & feels after the seizure is finished.

Simple Partial Seizures: the person may be fully conscious & aware throughout of symtoms affecting a small part of one of the lobes of their brain
Complex Partial Seizures: the person may be unaware of the seizure & can be confused & have hearing & speech difficulties & exhibit different repetitive behaviour responses following an episode that affects a larger part of one hemisphere of the brain.
Generalised Seizures: the person will be unconscious & not remember the symptoms of a generalised seizure that affects both sides of the brain at once.

A person with epilepsy may experience Absences becoming blank & unresponsive for a short period. They may experience Tonic Seizures, going stiff & falling backwards or Atonic, where muscles lose tone & become floppy causing the person to fall. They may experience Myoclonic seizures with muscle jerks or Tonic Clonic convulsive seizures sometimes called Grand Mal in which the person becomes unconscious & falls, goes stiff, experiences muscle jerks, may experience breathing difficulty and may lose bladder control.
 
Having an epileptic seizure can be worrying both for the person who has epilepsy & for those around them. It is important to ensure that the person with epilepsy feels that they are in a safe environment with people who understand what to do and how best to support them through their seizures. This is especially important when supporting people who have limited understanding of their condition, communication difficulties and learning disabilities.

A number of people who have epilepsy rely on a regime of anti-epileptic medication (AED) to help control their symptoms. Understanding this medication & ensuring that it is taken correctly as per medical advice, monitoring any side-effects & using a seizure diary to record a person's seizure pattern are essential ways to ensure that the person who has epilepsy is supported effectively and enabled to live as ordinary a life as is possible.

Our goal at Dignity is to enable people who have learning disabilities & epilepsy to have, as much as is possible, a full life, supporting them in managing risks to take part in life-enhancing activities and ordinary experiences so that they can take up opportunities & not feel unhelpfully limited by their medical condition.

Understanding Epilepsy & how it can affect people who also have learning disabilities is essential to beginning the process of planning, preparing & providing appropriate support. At Dignity Group we have been successful in offering appropriate long term placements for people who have learning disabilities & epilesy

Contact us to find out more about
Dignity Group services for people with learning disabilities & epilepsy

01243 811482