Lists possible complications or worsening of disease process
Grading rubric for Disease Journal:1.Identifies the disease process under discussion.2.Lists possible complications or worsening of disease process.3.Lists potential life interferences or accommodations.4.Describes patient information necessary to individually manage the disease process and live successfully with the disease.5.Lists potential medication(s) and medication needs for the disease process
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At the age of 7, I had my first seizure, but it soon passed away, and I never had it again until I was seventeen. Few days after my seventeenth birthday the seizure returned. After this incident, a series of tests that included neuroimaging, laboratory testing, and EEG was carried out, and I was diagnosed with status epilepticus disorder. This is a single seizure that lasts for more than five minutes or causing two or more seizures with a period of 5 minutes without the person returning to normal between them. Epileptic seizure disorder is a chronic brain disorder that is characterized by reoccurring, ? 2 unprovoked seizures. This type of seizure is not related to a reversible stressor. A seizure is an abnormal, unregulated electrical discharge that occurs within the brain’s cortical gray matter and transiently interrupts normal brain function. The doctor described my type of epilepsy as one that is idiopathic, meaning that the cause is unknown. However, different brain disorders such as malformations, strokes, and tumors are implicated in causing symptomatic epilepsy. Typically, when I have a seizure, it comes with altered awareness, abnormal sensations, focal involuntary movements, or convulsions.
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Epilepsy has complications or worsening effects on different systems of the body. It affects the cardiac system causing hypertension, tachycardia, arrhythmias, and cardiac arrest. Cardiac arrhythmias may be precipitated by lactic acidosis and elevated catecholamines. The autonomic system is likewise affected with indicating symptoms like fever, sweating, hypersecretion, and vomiting. Hyperthermia can occur because of too much of convulsive muscle contraction and hypothalamic effects. Autonomic defects and cardiac arrhythmias are known to play a role in most mortality of and sudden death of epilepsy patients. In the pulmonary system, complication that can occur include apnea, respiratory failure, hypoxia, neurogenic pulmonary, edema, and aspiration pneumonia. The metabolic system complications due to epilepsy include hyperkalemia, hyperglycemia then hypoglycemia, volume depletion, venous stasis, and possible thrombosis. Cerebral blood flow and metabolism are raised in patients in early epilepsy but declines and the increased metabolism of discharging neurons may outstrip the oxygen and glucose supply. The endocrine system may also show increased prolactin and cortisol level. Epilepsy can also result in the progressive loss of inhibitory GABA receptors, which can be sued in determining when epilepsy becomes more intractable to treatment and physiologically dangerous. After repeated seizure, rhabdomyolysis can occur and cause hypotension, which can result in kidney failure.
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Epilepsy has created a huge impact in various aspects of my life. It has impacted my education, employment, social interactions, family relationships, and experiential activities. I currently experience impaired social cognitive skills and sufferer from communication problems and interpersonal difficulties. I constantly have the fear of having a seizure when in public with friends, and this has caused a huge limitation in my social interaction with people. Growing up, I experienced stigmatization because of my illness. Now, I am glad that a lot of effort has been put into de-stigmatizing patients with epilepsy and empowering them. Many patients with epilepsy have fewer social supports, are less likely to marry, have children and many unemployables. Many epileptic patients have difficulties in developing interpersonal skills.
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Managing epilepsy can be complicated because of the aspects of life it affects. The priorities for successfully managing the disease include taking medications regularly, maintaining a healthy habit that includes diet and exercise, having seizure safety guidelines in mind, and evading medications that can worsen the seizure. Also, it is important to attend treatment reviews at least once a year and know certain things in your environment that can cause you have a seizure. It is also important to develop relationships and talk to people; epilepsy can make someone feel sad, stressed, lonely, anxious, or depressed. Lastly, there is no straight road when to comes to developing the best care regimen. It is imperative to keep trying new approaches until the one that best suits an epileptic patient is found.
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Two groups of medication classes are considered as anticonvulsants against epilepsy: Very rapidly acting anticonvulsants and anticonvulsants that act less rapidly. The very rapid acting anticonvulsants are needed for the interruption of status epilepticus, especially if pathological and physiological effects are impending. They generate an effect within 1 – 5 minutes; these are the benzodiazepines such as diazepam and lorazepam, and pentobarbital. The anticonvulsants that are less rapid but provide a protection against the reemergence of epilepsy; their effect is felt within 5 minutes to an hour and they include Phenytoin, Valproic acid, Phenobarbital, and Fosphenytoin.
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