How to determine benign epilepsy in children?

Epilepsy is a very scary disease. Once the disease occurs, the patient will have convulsions and foaming at the mouth, which is very scary because this disease is a neurological disease caused by abnormal discharges in the brain. It has a great impact on life, especially on the physical development of children, and can cause consequences such as developmental delay in children. Epilepsy in children is mainly benign epilepsy. Let’s take a look at how to judge benign epilepsy in children.

1. This disease only occurs in children and accounts for about 1/4 of childhood epilepsy. It is a relatively common type of epilepsy. The first onset of the disease in children is usually between 2 and 13 years old, with the most common being 5 to 10 years old. Boys are slightly more likely to be affected than girls. The onset of this disease is closely related to sleep, often occurring shortly after the child falls asleep or before or after waking up in the morning, and sometimes during a nap. A small number of children may also have attacks when they are awake during the day.

2. The disease often starts with twitching of the facial muscles on one side, gradually followed by twitching of the upper and lower limbs on the same side, and then develops into twitching of the whole body. Sometimes this process develops very quickly, and when parents discover it, the child is already convulsing all over the body. If the child is awake before the onset of an attack, he or she will often have oropharyngeal symptoms, such as increased saliva, swallowing sounds in the larynx, or some abnormal sensations in the mouth. Although sometimes children understand in their hearts, they cannot express it in words.

3. The number of attacks varies for each child. Some children only have 1 to 2 attacks, or 1 to 2 attacks a year, while others have more frequent attacks.

The EEG of this disease has special changes. When there is no attack, it manifests as spike waves or spike-slow waves in the central or temporal areas of the brain. However, in 30% of children, the EEG only shows this feature after falling asleep. Therefore, when this disease is suspected, if the child's EEG is normal when awake, a sleep EEG is also needed to confirm the diagnosis.

4. Why is this disease called benign? Because this disease does not cause organic changes in the brain, CT and MRI examinations are also normal. The children's intellectual development is not affected after contracting the disease, and some children have very good academic performance. Moreover, as the age increases, the seizures become less and less frequent. About half of the children can stop having seizures three years after the onset of the disease, about 90% of the children can stop having seizures at the age of 12, and almost all the children have stopped having seizures by the age of 17.