A condition that affects two and a half million people in this country. Dr. Bernadine Healy reports the latest from Washington on Thursday's edition of The Early Show.
Epilepsy is a general term for recurring seizures or electrical disturbances in the brain.
They can sometimes be caused by brain injury or infection, or it can be an inherited abnormality. In a lot of cases the cause is unknown. A cure is still a long way off, but we are getting good at controlling the number of seizures an epileptic has through anti-convulsant drugs. A new drug was just approved this week to add to the dozen or so others have become available over the last ten years. The trick is to find the drug or combination of drugs that is right for the individual sufferer.