Some Epilepsy Facts

1. Epilepsy is defined as a tendency to have recurrent seizures, when a sudden burst of excess electrical activity in the brain causes a temporary disruption in the normal message-passing between brain cells. 
2. Epilepsy is not one condition but a composite of about 40 different types of seizures and up to 50 different syndromes. 
3. Epilepsy affects about 600,000 people in the UK.
4. Epilepsy is a recognised Disability. It's also a "hidden disability" as you cannot see it.
5. It is estimated that about 69,000 people with epilepsy could have their seizures controlled with good treatment.
6. About 74,000 people in the UK are taking aggressive drugs unnecessarily, because of misdiagnosis 
7. A quarter of people in the UK who are known to learning disability services have epilepsy.
8. Half of the 60,000 young people in the UK with epilepsy, are estimated to be underachieving academically relative to their intellectual capacity
9. People in the UK with epilepsy, have been shown to be twice as likely as those without epilepsy to be at risk of being unemployed.
10. In 2009 about 1,150 people in the UK died of epilepsy-related causes. That means that, each day in the UK, approximately three people with epilepsy die, and at least a third of those deaths—one death each day—are potentially avoidable.

So... How many of these facts about Epilepsy, did YOU know ?