Comprehensive Analysis of Seizure Disorder: A Nursing Perspective

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of seizure disorder, detailing its causes, risk factors, and symptoms, while emphasizing the critical role of nursing care in managing the condition. It highlights the importance of patient safety during seizures, the need for medicinal management and psychological support to mitigate side effects like depression, and the significance of educating patients about their condition to enhance their quality of life. The essay also addresses the challenges nurses face, such as a lack of formal education in seizure care, and underscores the importance of effective communication skills in building patient-nurse relationships to improve self-management strategies. Furthermore, it outlines specific nursing interventions, including assessing injuries post-seizure and ensuring patient safety and dignity, advocating for comprehensive patient education to empower individuals in managing their condition effectively.

Running head: SEIZURE DISORDER 1
SEIZURE DISORDER
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

SEIZURE DISORDER 2
Seizure Disorder
Seizure disorder is a change in the electrical activity of the brain, which may cause
noticeable and dramatic symptoms. However, in some situations, the symptoms may not be
visible. Loss of control and violent shaking is the severe symptoms of the seizure disorder.
The medical practitioners may find it difficult to recognise mild symptoms of a seizure. A
seizure is caused by a number of health conditions; thus, anything that has an impact on the
brain may lead to a seizure. The conditions that may lead to seizure comprise of brain injury
during the period of child’s birth, alcohol withdrawal, drug abuse, chocking, drug
withdrawal, electric shock, choking, head trauma, brain tumour, liver and kidney failure. In
addition, the seizure may be caused through a stroke, low level of blood glucose, extremely
high blood pressure, brain infection like meningitis, defect of the brain during birth and
vascular abnormality in the brain.
On the other hand, seizures can genetically be inherited hence runs in families. Therefore
it is important to know your family history if anyone had a seizure and the cause of seizure in
young children may be unknown on particular occasions. Seizure disorder is most common in
older adults and the children; however, this condition may affect any age group (Ahmed,
Saad & Khalaf, 2017).
A risk factor is something that heightens the probability of a person to develop a seizure
disorder. These risk factors at times may cause brain scary, which may cause some parts of
the brain not to work or develop properly. The risk factors constitute of the utilisation of
illegal drugs such as cocaine, autism spectrum disorder, cerebral palsy, early posttraumatic
seizures, Alzheimer disease, repeated or extended episodes of seizure, bleeding in the brain
and insufficient supply of oxygen in the brain. Furthermore, the risk factors comprise of
babies who experience a seizure during their early month of life and mild head injury like a
concussion.

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The signs and symptoms of seizure disorder range from mild – severe and differ
depending on the type of seizure that a patient possesses. A seizure can be manifested
through signs and symptoms such as loss of consciousness, string spell, temporary confusion,
cognitive symptoms like anxiety and fear and uncontrollable shaking movements of legs and
arms. The doctors can categorise the type of seizure to either be generalised or focal
depending on where and how the abnormal activities of the brain commenced. If the cause of
the seizure is unknown, it can be categorised as an unknown onset (Liu, Yu & Lü, 2016).
This factor has a great impact on the care that I provide as a medical expert. Thus, when
there is occurrence of a seizure as a nurse am obligated to keep the patient safe to avoid any
form of injury that may result due to falling. As a nurse, my duty is to provide cost-effective
and high-quality care for the families and patients with a seizure disorder (Kennedy-Malone,
Martin-Plank & Duffy, 2018). Medicinal management will aid to reduce the side effects of
the seizure. Majority of the seizure patients often suffer from depression which can be
mitigated through support and counselling to improve their quality of life.
It is difficult to manage seizure disorder since the majority of the patients are often restless
(Terry, Patel, Cohen, Scherzer & Kline, 2016). In the circumstance that a seizure patient has
fallen on the floor on my watch. As a nurse, it will be my duty to evaluate the situation on
whether the patient may have developed an injury or displaced his limb. If the behaviour of
the patient may appear strange, then I will have to take personal safety measures to prevent
the patient from invoking harm on me. In the situation that the patient has come up from the
floor and commences to walk off before the commencement of the automatism, I will have to
get ready to follow him. This is because the patient may end up removing his clothes; thus, I
will have to cover him with a towel or blanket to reduce that embarrassment when he
recovers.

SEIZURE DISORDER 4
The patients with seizure have often complained about not being empowered on the
management and treatment measures in regards to their disease. Thus, as a nurse, it is my
duty to educate the patient in order for him to understand his condition, treatment, safety
mechanisms and side effects to enhance the quality of life. The patient needs to be aware and
engage in the activities that will reduce stress and understand the benefits of attaining
sufficient sleep (Marrie et al., 2015).
As a nurse, it is crucial to possess effective communication skills since we are the first
medical experts to interact with the patient when examining their needs and conditions. The
patients with chronic infections are more likely to contact and discuss care strategies with the
nurses in comparison with the physicians. This builds up a patient-nurse relationship which
will enable a nurse to recognise self- management barriers and priorities (Williams & Park,
2015).
Lack of formal education in the field of seizure care is a challenge that the majority of the
nurses face in regards to the administration of treatment. Therefore, it is crucial for the
medical facilities to develop resources that will aid the nurses to provide sufficient care to the
patients. As a nurse, it is essential to be knowledgeable in terms of the nursing guidelines for
education and care of patients with seizure. Improving the patient’s knowledge about the
disease is efficient in regards to self – management strategies.

SEIZURE DISORDER 5
References
Ahmed, F. A., Saad, A. E., & Khalaf, S. A. (2017). Impact of educational program about care
of children with febrile convulsion on nurses’ knowledge and performance. Journal of
Nursing Education and Practice, 7(1).
Kennedy-Malone, L., Martin-Plank, L., & Duffy, E. (2018). Advanced practice nursing in the
care of older adults. FA Davis.
Liu, S., Yu, W., & Lü, Y. (2016). The causes of new-onset epilepsy and seizures in the
elderly. Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment, 12, 1425.
Marrie, R. A., Reider, N., Cohen, J., Trojano, M., Sorensen, P. S., Cutter, G., ... & Stuve, O.
(2015). A systematic review of the incidence and prevalence of sleep disorders and seizure
disorders in multiple sclerosis. Multiple Sclerosis Journal, 21(3), 342-349.
Terry, D., Patel, A. D., Cohen, D. M., Scherzer, D., & Kline, J. (2016). Barriers to seizure
management in schools: Perceptions of school nurses. Journal of child neurology, 31(14),
1602-1606.
Williams, A. M., & Park, S. H. (2015). Seizure associated with clozapine: incidence,
etiology, and management. CNS drugs, 29(2), 101-111.