General Nursing©

What You Should Know About Epilepsy?

• First, clear everything out of the way.
• Don't hold the patient down or try to stop the jerking.
• Put something flat and soft under the patient's head.
• Make sure there's nothing tight around his neck that could interfere with breathing.
• Check your watch so you'll know how long the seizure lasts.
• Turn the patient gently onto one side so he or she doesn't choke.
• Don't try to open his mouth.
• Don't try to put anything in his mouth.
• Don't try to give him or her anything to drink during the seizure.
• Comfort the patient as he starts to wake up afterwards. Help her get cleaned up if she wet or solid herself during the seizure.

Some patients are exhausted after a seizure and need to sleep. Some are confused or cranky for a while. Others can go back quickly to what they were doing before.

When to Call the Ambulance or Rush to the Emergency Room.

There is often no need to call an ambulance or bring the patient to the emergency room during a seizure because most often seizures end after 1-2 minutes and the patients recovers normal function soon after. There are few times, fortunately quite rare, when you should call for emergency medical assistance or rush to the nearest hospital. These situations are:

• When a seizure doesn't show any signs of stopping after five minutes.
• When a seizure happened in water and there's any chance that the patient inhaled or swallowed a lot of water.
• When a patient doesn't recover consciousness or isn't breathing properly afterwards.
• When a patients vomits during the seizure and then doesn't come round or isn't breathing properly afterwards.
• When another seizure starts soon after the first one.
• When an unexpected seizure happens in a person who does not have epilepsy.
• When a patient is pregnant, diabetic or is injured.

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