Is epilepsy a hereditary disease?

Is epilepsy a hereditary disease?

Epilepsy (from the Greek ???????? /epili?psia/ ) is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by recurrent unprovoked seizures. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain. About 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, with almost 90% of these people being in developing countries. Epilepsy is more likely to occur in young children, or people over the age of 65 years, however it can occur at any time. Epilepsy is usually controlled, but not cured, with medication, although surgery may be considered in difficult cases. However, over 30% of people with epilepsy do not have seizure control even with the best available medications . Not all epilepsy syndromes are lifelong ? some forms are confined to particular stages of childhood. Epilepsy should not be understood as a single disorder, but rather as a group of syndromes with vastly divergent symptoms but all involving episodic abnormal electrical activity in the brain.

Epilepsy is classified according to the type of fits, the age of onset and the cause. There are two major types of epilepsy. One is when all investigations are done and no definitive cause is found and is thus inherited; this is called primary epilepsy. The other is secondary epilepsy, which is due to damage to the brain due to causes like infection, injury to the brain, stroke in elderly or due to toxins. There is a third type too which is in between the two where we suspect that there is a cause but by currently available investigations we cannot find it, so we call it a kind of hidden or cryptic epilepsy.

Yes, in many of the cases.

Hi,
Yes it can be hereditary also. Most cases of epilepsy are said to be idiopathic i.e. doctors cannot find a clear cause. Thus, 60% of grand mal is "idiopathic" and nearly 100% of classic absence is idiopathic. Partial seizures are always due to focal brain disease.

The ones where doctors find a cause are called symptomatic i.e. the fit is a symptom of some brain damage. Among such cases are brain tumour, strokes, head injury, cerebral infection and errors of development that are present since birth. Biochemical cause like low sugar, low calcium, very high sugar and high blood pressure, and less circulation of blood to brain may cause seizures.

Idiopathic only means that the doctors are unable to locate the exact cause. However, the cause may be genetic or development abnormalities which are at microscope levels and cannot be seen by the MRI Scan.