Who can have epilepsy?
Practically, anyone can have excessive excitation of the brain cells leading to a seizure if there are precipitating conditions that reduce the threshold for electrical excitation such as fever, lack of sleep, alcohol, chemicals/drugs etc. In addition brain injury, strike, poisoning, metabolic disturbance in body’s chemical environment (such as heat or sun stroke) can cause seizures. When unprovoked and repetitive we call it epilepsy. A single seizure may occur commonly in many persons and we do not cal it epilepsy but it is necessary to investigate even a single seizure Epilepsy is seen most commonly in childhood below the age of 10 years (50% of all onset of seizures), then becomes less in adolescent (70 % of all seizures have begun by 20 yrs), rare in adulthood and again is seen to rise after the age of 50 years.
