Partial Seizures And Their Signs And Symptoms

When an uncontrolled electrical activity takes place in the brain, seizures or physical convulsions can be experienced. Signs and symptoms of seizures depend on the area or side of the brain where seizure activity happens and on other factors like the type of seizure as well as the age and health conditions of the patient.

Symptoms of Simple Partial Seizures

Patients with such type of seizures do not experience impairment or loss of consciousness, and some of them experiences stereotypical symptoms. Signs of such seizures may involve the person’s motor, psychic, sensory, and autonomic systems.

Among the motor signs of seizures are eye movements and turning of the patient’s head to the same side, alternating relaxation and contraction of muscle groups, unbalanced posturing of the limbs, as well as speech arrest. Sensory symptoms of simple partial seizures include hearing noises particularly buzzing, humming and hissing; having illusions and hallucinations, spotting flashes or colors of lights; smelling unpleasant odors; lightheadedness; and dizziness.

You may also observe a number of autonomic symptoms such as incontinence, sweating, rapid heart rate, and goose bumps. There are also rumbling noises caused by the gas in the patient’s intestines. The person may also experience flushing, nausea and/or vomiting and papillary dilation.

As for the psychic symptoms, the person with simple partial seizures will experience depersonalization and detachment, time distortion, dreamy stage, and unprovoked feeling of depression, fear, elation, anger, pleasure, and eroticism. Worse, the patient can have memory distortion like panoramic vision, a feeling that he has seen or heard something before, and a feeling that he has never heard or seen something that’s familiar.


Symptoms of Complex Partial Seizures

What sets complex to simple partial seizures is the loss of consciousness experienced by the patient. While the person is unconscious, he may display frightened or empty look and may show some of the signs and symptoms of a simple partial seizure. Automatisms can also take place during the person’s unconsciousness.

The types of automatisms that can be observed in the patient are:

• Alimentary – characterized by chewing, increased production of saliva, and borborygmi or roaring noises produced by the gas in the person’s intestines.

• Gestural – includes repetitive movements of the person’s fingers and hands as well as sexual gestures.

• Verbal – such as swearing or repeated words or phrases.

• Mimetic – involves facial expressions of discomfort, fear, crying, tranquility, laughter, bewilderment and other emotions.

• Ambulatory – like running and wandering.

Drop attacks can be experienced by patients who have been suffering from complex partial seizures for a considerable period of time.

Among the types of complex partial seizures and their symptoms are:

• Tonic-Clonic Seizures
In the tonic phase, seizures are characterized by a fall, clenched jaw and fingers, extension of legs, face, and arms, loss of consciousness, and tonic cry. The person may also display autonomic symptoms such as faster heart rate, high blood pressure, increased bladder pressure, sweating, increased salivation and bronchial secretion, and cessation of breathing. It is during the clonic stage when the patient’s muscles completely relax and the muscle tone becomes normal again.

• Absence Seizures
Such seizures have rapid onset and display symptoms like blank staring; automatisms like scratching, chewing, licking the lips, etc.), lack of consciousness, jerking movements of the body’s extremities, and postictal confusion.

• Myoclonical Seizures
These are brief seizures that are caused by abrupt onset of muscle contractions that may take place all over or in certain parts of the body. The seizure can be very brief that it can’t be distinguished if the patients consciousness or awareness is lost or not.