engleski

Epilepsy in Children: Clinical and Social Aspects

Epilepsy is a neurological condition that accompanies mankind probably since its inception. About 400 years before Christ, the disease was already known by Hippocrates, who wrote the book “On The Sacred Disease”, in which he refuted the idea that the upheaval was the work of spirits and wisely related it to the brain. This concept was not fully accepted until modern era (John Hughlings Jackson, 1873). Classically, epilepsy is defined as a chronic condition characterized by an enduring propensity to generate seizures, which are paroxysmal occurring episodes of abnormal excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain. According to WHO epilepsy accounts for about 1% of the total burden of disease worldwide, about the same as breast cancer in women and lung cancer in men. In childhood, epilepsy is more common in the first year of life, and its incidence decreases progressively with increasing age. Out of all brain disorders, epilepsy is the one that offers a unique opportunity to understand normal brain functions as derived from excessive dysfunction of neuronal circuits, because the symptoms of epileptic seizures are not the result of usual loss of function that accompanies many disease that affect the brain. I am therefore extremely honoured to present this book. The 15 very interesting chapters of the textbook cover various fields in epileptology – they encompass the etiology and pathogenesis of the disease, clinical presentation with special attention to the epileptic syndromes of childhood, principles of medical management, surgical approaches, as well as social aspects of the disease.

epilepsy; children

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