P H.D. Epilepsy affects almost one percent of the population of the United States. It is a brain disorder causing unpredictable, uncontrolled seizures that can occur at any time or place. Seizures result when the normal, tightly controlled electrical activity of the brain becomes excessive and disordered, interrupting normal awareness and normal activities. The brain slowly regains its normal activity as the patient wakes up, unaware of what happened.
Epilepsy is the most common neurological disorder among young people.
It takes a social toll impossible to measure in disrupted lives for both epileptics and their families. That cost is all the more frustrating because it seems as if it should be greatly reduced if only we had the right drugs to control the seizures. Many useful drugs exist for epilepsy, and several new ones have become available recently. But, for about one third of patients, seizures cannot be controlled by presently available medical therapy. Some epileptics can be helped by brain surgery, but thousands remain whose epilepsy cannot be controlled by any present- day treatments.