In spite of modern science and treatment, the population with epilepsy has a mortality rate up to 3 times greater than that of the general population.
Unexplained deaths are ones that occur without any obvious clinical or pathological explanations.
Usually, these people have at least a 2-year history of epilepsy. In many cases, the patients are found lying in bed or on the floor with no evidence of a seizure having occurred. It is possible that many such deaths are the result of an irreversible cardiac arrest of some sort. Such attacks have been witnessed in emergency rooms, where doctors were completely defenseless to the oncoming arrest and unable to resuscitate the patient. If a seizure is observed, generalized tonic-clonic convulsions are usually reported.