Atonic Seizures
What is an "atonic" seizure?
The general term "atonic seizure" involves losing posture and falling to the ground. This can occur in several types of epilepsy. Atonic seizure is common to the generalized epilepsy, and also to the complex partial epilepsy. The atonic epilepsy can strike at any time, a person could be walking and atonic epilepsy or an atonic seizure can hit and it's amazing that they will just almost collapse like a book falling from a bookshelf. It's very important I think, to realize that this is a seizure and that it is not a life-and-death threat type of thing, it's not a fatal heart attack, or a fatal stroke which is occurring.
What triggers an atonic seizure?
It is really unclear to what exactly triggers an atonic seizure. As I mentioned these atonics seizures can occur at any time and we really don't know the mechanism for them. Therefore atonic seizures are hard to predict when they hit because there is no warning.
What are the dangers of atonic seizures?
The most obvious danger of an atonic seizure is falling and landing right on your head. This could probably lead to a concussion, and so the most dangerous part of an atonic seizure is where are you landing when you're falling down. If it's a hard surface than it can be more deleterious than if it's a grassy lawn. If they are prone to atonic seizures it's a good idea to protect the head just for this purpose, that they would not hit their head on a hard surface and have a concussion.
What treatments are available to a person who has atonic seizures?
There really is no specialized medicine, according to my knowledge, for treatment of this type of seizure. However, if this is a kind of seizure that occurs frequently, there are helmets that are similar to the kind worn by hockey players that can be worn an would act to prevent some head damage, that could result, head trauma, that could result from the fall.
What do I do if I see someone having an atonic seizure?
The most important thing to do if someone is having an atonic seizure is to make sure that there are no heavy objects around that person while they're on the ground. You should clear the area and try to make the person as comfortable as possible. If there's no pillow around, take your jacket off and put it under their head. A little bit of padding there between the surface that they fell on and their head is helpful. Other than that, you pretty much have got to let them ride out the atonic seizure.
