Epilepsy Podcast
(Capstone 2020) Sigourney Alden
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ARTIST STATEMENT:
I made this podcast because I have a very strong passion for this topic. I have suffered from Epilepsy for 11 going on 12 years. Since this is a big part of my life and who I am as a person I always feel the need to raise awareness of this condition to the people of the world. I would describe this podcast as intense, intriguing and educational. The way that I was able to produce this podcast was by using all of my own knowledge as well as many sources I have found throughout my journey such as The Epilepsy Foundation and the CDC. I talked with Dr. Catherine Chu who was my Neurosurgeon for more details I used in this podcast. |
COVER LETTER:
This podcast is about Epilepsy, Epileptics and what they go through and also the story of one person in particular's fight with Epilepsy. My point of view on this podcast is that it accurately touches on the points and the questions I had. It makes clear what epileptics do in fact go though and engages the listener well and takes you along while the story of this girl is being told. My goals were to educate the listener on Epilepsy which is a very common disorder that not many people know about. I am pretty happy with how this came out. I think that I touched on all the points I wanted to make. I am proud of the data and logistics that I provided in this podcast. |
SCRIPT:
Hello, my name is Siggy Alden and today in this podcast I am going to be talking about epilepsy.
Now I'm sure many of you have absolutely no idea what epilepsy is or why I am even talking about it.
Epilepsy is a very important subject to me personally because it has played a big part in my life
Some people might think that epilepsy is rare because you don't see people with it often but actually it's much more common than you might think, according to the CDC in 2015 1.2% of the united states was suffering from active epilepsy that's about 3.4 million people nationwide
You may not think it but you probably know someone with epilepsy or know someone who knows someone. tHe reason it is so overlooked is because epileptics look completely normal up until the point they are having the seizure.
So I decided to do some research on the questions that I feel are most asked and answer them here. I also am going to go into depth about one person's fight with epilepsy and how it affected their life.
Now let's get started with the questions
One of the most talked about questions when talking about epilepsy is simply
What is epilepsy?
Now I could go into details and make it sound like I am just reading straight from the epilepsy foundations website but I don't want to do that. I'm gonna keep it as simple as i can
. Epilepsy is basically a neurological disorder that causes a person's brain to give off electrical impulses and cause seizures
Many ask
How is it caused? There are so many different causes of epilepsy you could have a stroke and many concussions that lead to brain damage. You could be born with a defect, various infections and tumors. As well as any more. A lot of people don't know what causes it
Another big question that epileptics and non epileptics have right off the bat is. Can epilepsy be cured? Unfortunately the answer to that is there is no cure for epilepsy they have various seizure medications that you can take as well as a surgical option but that does not always work and it is always used as a last resort because it is a brain surgery and it is very dangerous obviously. I knew someone actually who would have so many seizures a day and her epilepsy was all over her brain so they could not operate on her. The medications also did not control her seizures and she was allergic to diastat which is basically an epipen for epileptics to stop their seizures. Unfortunately because of this she has been told that she most likely will not live past 25
The last question I want to touch on before I start telling the story is what do epileptics go through on a regular basis?
The answer is obviously different for all epileptics but in general an epileptic will visit the hospital for blood work at least once every month as well as go through numerous testing such as MRI’s EEG’s MEGS and EKG’s. I will touch on what each of those are in a bit but the amount of time epileptics spend in hospital is overwhelming to say the least.
Now onto the story. Today we are going to be diving into one woman's life with epilepsy.
Now this all started when she was 8 years old with a history of daily seizures due to a perinatal stroke. Due to her disabling daily seizures, she had undergone multiple treatment trials and lengthy evaluations at 4 different epilepsy centers until she ended up going to MGH. She had exhausted multiple medication options as well as the ketogenic diet. Due to the proximity of her seizures to her visual cortex. By the time she arrived at MGH she was 13 years old and having 20+ seizures a day. surgical options to manage her seizures needed to be taken in order to give her a long life. The evaluations at MGH were lengthy and challenging to collect the necessary data. In addition to multiple outpatient studies and visits, she underwent a 6 day phase I video EEG which is a monitoring method that tracks electrical activity in the brain., following that was a 21-day invasive phase II evaluation with 4 4-contact depth electrodes, one 48 contact grid, and 4 4-contact strips to sample the contours of her stroke cavity this means that they put electrodes on her scalp to monitor where all of the electricity was coming from in her brain and to get an accurate reading on what part of her brain was causing the seizures. Her postoperative course was complicated by the rare development of a hypersensitivity rash when she slowly restarted the epilepsy medication she had been on for years, this required readmission for 5 further days for treatment and stabilization. After enduring epilepsy for 8 years at this point and going through the most aggressive treatment options she is said to be seizure free but still has a high risk of having seizures in the future.
Now the overall reason I made this podcast and the reason I told you the story of that little girl is because epilepsy is a huge deal, SUDEP which is the (sudden unexpected death in epilepsy) kills more than 1,000 people in the united states each year and she was going to die from it too. It's a very scary and very common disorder. The other reason I made this podcast and told you that story is because that little girl in the story… is me.
Thank you very much for listening and I hope I taught you all something today
Hello, my name is Siggy Alden and today in this podcast I am going to be talking about epilepsy.
Now I'm sure many of you have absolutely no idea what epilepsy is or why I am even talking about it.
Epilepsy is a very important subject to me personally because it has played a big part in my life
Some people might think that epilepsy is rare because you don't see people with it often but actually it's much more common than you might think, according to the CDC in 2015 1.2% of the united states was suffering from active epilepsy that's about 3.4 million people nationwide
You may not think it but you probably know someone with epilepsy or know someone who knows someone. tHe reason it is so overlooked is because epileptics look completely normal up until the point they are having the seizure.
So I decided to do some research on the questions that I feel are most asked and answer them here. I also am going to go into depth about one person's fight with epilepsy and how it affected their life.
Now let's get started with the questions
One of the most talked about questions when talking about epilepsy is simply
What is epilepsy?
Now I could go into details and make it sound like I am just reading straight from the epilepsy foundations website but I don't want to do that. I'm gonna keep it as simple as i can
. Epilepsy is basically a neurological disorder that causes a person's brain to give off electrical impulses and cause seizures
Many ask
How is it caused? There are so many different causes of epilepsy you could have a stroke and many concussions that lead to brain damage. You could be born with a defect, various infections and tumors. As well as any more. A lot of people don't know what causes it
Another big question that epileptics and non epileptics have right off the bat is. Can epilepsy be cured? Unfortunately the answer to that is there is no cure for epilepsy they have various seizure medications that you can take as well as a surgical option but that does not always work and it is always used as a last resort because it is a brain surgery and it is very dangerous obviously. I knew someone actually who would have so many seizures a day and her epilepsy was all over her brain so they could not operate on her. The medications also did not control her seizures and she was allergic to diastat which is basically an epipen for epileptics to stop their seizures. Unfortunately because of this she has been told that she most likely will not live past 25
The last question I want to touch on before I start telling the story is what do epileptics go through on a regular basis?
The answer is obviously different for all epileptics but in general an epileptic will visit the hospital for blood work at least once every month as well as go through numerous testing such as MRI’s EEG’s MEGS and EKG’s. I will touch on what each of those are in a bit but the amount of time epileptics spend in hospital is overwhelming to say the least.
Now onto the story. Today we are going to be diving into one woman's life with epilepsy.
Now this all started when she was 8 years old with a history of daily seizures due to a perinatal stroke. Due to her disabling daily seizures, she had undergone multiple treatment trials and lengthy evaluations at 4 different epilepsy centers until she ended up going to MGH. She had exhausted multiple medication options as well as the ketogenic diet. Due to the proximity of her seizures to her visual cortex. By the time she arrived at MGH she was 13 years old and having 20+ seizures a day. surgical options to manage her seizures needed to be taken in order to give her a long life. The evaluations at MGH were lengthy and challenging to collect the necessary data. In addition to multiple outpatient studies and visits, she underwent a 6 day phase I video EEG which is a monitoring method that tracks electrical activity in the brain., following that was a 21-day invasive phase II evaluation with 4 4-contact depth electrodes, one 48 contact grid, and 4 4-contact strips to sample the contours of her stroke cavity this means that they put electrodes on her scalp to monitor where all of the electricity was coming from in her brain and to get an accurate reading on what part of her brain was causing the seizures. Her postoperative course was complicated by the rare development of a hypersensitivity rash when she slowly restarted the epilepsy medication she had been on for years, this required readmission for 5 further days for treatment and stabilization. After enduring epilepsy for 8 years at this point and going through the most aggressive treatment options she is said to be seizure free but still has a high risk of having seizures in the future.
Now the overall reason I made this podcast and the reason I told you the story of that little girl is because epilepsy is a huge deal, SUDEP which is the (sudden unexpected death in epilepsy) kills more than 1,000 people in the united states each year and she was going to die from it too. It's a very scary and very common disorder. The other reason I made this podcast and told you that story is because that little girl in the story… is me.
Thank you very much for listening and I hope I taught you all something today