Disorders of the Brain. Unit seven project.
Kaplan University
PS124: Introduction to Psychology
Prof: Karen Watson
July 25st 2012
Epilepsy of the brain.
The disorder of the brain that I will talk about is epilepsy, or as some people know it as, a seizure disorder. This topic is important to me on a personal level as well due to the fact that I have lived with epilepsy my whole life. Firstly what is epilepsy and what are seizures. Epilepsy is a word that refers to a tendency to have recurring seizures and seizures are momentary disturbance in brain function in which groups of nerve cells in the brain signal abnormally and excessively (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2011). There are many different types of seizures which are classified in to two groups. The two groups of seizures are focal or also know as partial seizures and generalized seizures (Kammerman, & Wasserman 2001). The focal group of seizures consists of simple partial seizures, complex partial seizures and partial seizures that turn in to generalized seizure. Generalized seizures normally consist of all of the other seizures that cannot be classified in to the focal group due to non specific point of origin. The parts of the brain that are involved in seizures depends on the type of seizure that a person experiences. For example a person who experiences a seizure in the generalized category normally has both hemispheres of the brain involved which in a lot of cases causes memory loss and mobility restrictions along with unconsciousness for a short period of time. A person who has focal or partial seizures like I do can experience a variety of different symptoms from them. From my own personal experience with these types of seizures and from many years of hearing from my neurologists these types of seizures involve the cerebral cortex and can cause tiredness, motor problems like speech and even movement related issues, memory related problems, vision...