Epilepsy – Young vs Elderly Causes

Transcript

So with respect to cause of epilepsy or cause of the seizure, absolutely thinking about it a little bit differently in young adults versus older adults. Although the workup is always pretty similar, but you know, the things that we’re looking at in younger adults, would be of course, you know, medications, illicit, drug use, and specifically anything that’s activating to the brain. So things like cocaine and methamphetamine especially that can provoke alcohol use, unfortunately. And then also, I mean, we’re thinking much more along the lines of, you know, genetic and generalized epilepsy in those types of patients as opposed to the patients over 50 and 60. We’re thinking along the lines of, you know, post stroke epilepsy, is there any stroke? A brain tumor? Actually, you know, amongst the top three causes of epilepsy is neurodegenerative diseases. So things like Alzheimer’s, as it progresses, and usually not in the early stages, but in the later stages, can actually cause enough injury in the brain that it can provoke seizures.