Seizure vs. Seizure Disorders: What's the Difference?

A seizure is single occurrence of uncontrolled electrical activity in the brain, usually for short time span. A seizure disorder is a medical condition characterized by episodes of uncontrolled electrical activity in the brain, thus producing symptoms that include two or more seizures.

• A seizure and a seizure disorder are not the same.
• A seizure is single occurrence of uncontrolled electrical activity in the brain, usually for short time span. It can cause numerous signs and symptoms like convulsions, thought disturbances, loss of consciousness, and/or other symptoms.
• Usually, doctors consider seizures a symptom of a disease. 
• Epilepsy is a chronic disorder of recurrent unprovoked seizures, and is one type of seizure disorder.
• In epilepsy, a convulsion is a sudden, violent irregular movement of a limb of the body caused by involuntary contraction of muscles usually associated with epilepsy and/or toxic agents. 

• A seizure disorder is a medical condition (one of about 40) characterized by episodes of uncontrolled electrical activity in the brain, thus producing symptoms that include two or more seizures.
• Doctors separate the disorders from each other by their potential causes and their own set of symptoms due to the affected area in the brain.

1. Generalized seizures result in loss of consciousness.

• Motor: Grand mal seizures (also called tonic-clonic with muscle jerks or spasms) and have signs and symptoms of stiffness of muscles (tonic), relaxed muscles (atonic), muscles that cause sporadic short jerking of body or limbs (myoclonic), and repetitive shaking or jerking of the body (clonic).
• Non-motor (absence): Symptoms include staring into space, sometimes with eye blinking.

2. Partial or focal seizures result in either no loss of consciousness or confusion for a few minutes.

• Aware: Twitching and/or sensation change
• Impaired awareness: No loss of consciousness, but you become confused for a few minutes

3. Unknown onset seizure

• Unclassified: It may share questionable features of generalized and/or focal seizures.
• Motor: Involving musculature
• Non-motor: Involving awareness

There are about 40 different types of named seizure disorders. However, all of the seizure disorders fit into one of the three seizure types listed previously. They differ from each other by some changes in the symptoms they produce. Although it is beyond the scope of this article to describe all types of seizure disorders, an example of how they are given names may give insight as to how their symptoms differ. For example:

• Simple partial seizure disorders differ from person to person depending upon the part of the brain affected.
• Benign Rolandic epilepsy in children causes tongue twitching, and may interfere with speech and cause drooling.
• Catamenial epilepsy refers to seizures that occur in relation to the menstrual cycle.
• Atonic seizures cause symptoms like falling usually not associated with loss of consciousness.
• Absence seizures cause a short loss of consciousness with little or no symptoms.
• Clonic seizures cause rhythmic jerks that involve both sides of the body simultaneously.
• Tonic seizures cause a stiffening of the muscles
• Febrile seizures usually occur in children between 6 months and 5 years of age. They are common in toddlers. 

Other symptoms of seizure disorders may include:

1. Convulsions
2. Eye blinking
3. The lips may slightly jerk and move.
4. Sudden loss of muscle tone
5. The head drops suddenly
6. The person cries out
7. The person falls to the ground
8. Changes in tastes or smells
9. Biting the tongue
10. The person cannot answer questions.
11. Thought disturbances
12. Eye rolling
13. The person involuntarily urinates or has a bowel movement.

With these few examples, you can understand the complexity of seizure disorders and their symptoms.

Until your seizures are controlled, you should not do activities where loss of consciousness could be life-threatening. For example, avoid

• driving,
• swimming,
• climbing,
• operating power tools, or
• taking a bath in a bathtub until about six months after becoming seizure free.

Some states require you to be free of seizures up to one year before you can drive.

• Although most seizures stop spontaneously after several minutes (average is about 1- 2 minutes), there are conditions that may cause brain damage and/or life-threatening situations due to seizures.
• Status epilepticus (seizures lasting 5 or more minutes or if there is more than one seizure within five minutes) is a medical emergency; call 911 as the patient needs emergency treatment, usually with an anticonvulsant such as lorazepam (Ativan), given intravenously.

• If you know the cause of your seizures or seizure disorder (such as alcohol intake or cocaine use, low blood sugar, and encephalitis), you should stop what's triggering them and/or treat any underlying medical conditions.
• For example, stop drinking alcohol and/or abusing legal or illegal drugs; and manage your blood sugar if you have diabetes.
• Take your medication as your doctor or other health care professional has prescribed.
• Seizures that do not respond to treatment may cause you and your medical team (primary care doctor, neurologist, and neurosurgeon) to consider surgery or nerve stimulation treatment.

• Depending upon the cause of the seizure and/or seizure disorder, the chances of reducing or preventing some of them is possible. You can do this by avoiding any known potential causes or triggers of your seizures, like drinking excessive alcohol or using cocaine and other illegal drugs.
• You should take your medicine as your doctor has prescribed to reduce the chance of developing another seizure.
• For some patients, brain surgery may eliminate seizures by removing the epileptic focus the brain tissue.
• Vagus nerve stimulation is another potential way to prevent some seizures.
• However, none of these treatments provides 100% prevention. In addition, it is difficult to prevent seizures caused by birth defects, injuries, strokes, or tumors.