One morning in November 2022, Laura Bennett was working from home when she started to feel a little off: tired, struggling to concentrate, and feeling a little detached from the world around her.
“I told my husband Matt I was going up for a few minutes to rest,” says Laura, 47, a marketing manager and mother-of-one from West Sussex.
But when she briefly stopped at the bathroom along the way, Laura’s entire body was suddenly attacked by an attack so violent that it sent her to the ground.
In 2022, Laura Bennett was told she had adult-onset epilepsy and would likely need to take anti-seizure medications daily for the rest of her life.
“I don’t remember any of it, but apparently Matt ran upstairs and got the scare of his life when he found me lying on the floor,” Laura says.
“I was having a very severe seizure. I later learned that a severe seizure is considered to be about five minutes long; mine lasted almost eight.
‘Matt called an ambulance and managed to protect me from injury by propping me up against the tub and holding my head in case I hit something.
“When I regained consciousness, I couldn’t speak for the next seven or eight hours because of the effects of the seizure on my brain. I’d never experienced anything like that before.”
Laura was rushed to hospital and underwent an electroencephalogram (a scan of the brain’s electrical activity) and was told she had adult-onset epilepsy and would likely need to take anti-seizure medication daily for the rest of her life.
A terrifying incident, no doubt. However, Laura knows she was lucky to be in the relative safety of her own home, with her husband present, when it happened.
But the dangers of a seizure that comes out of nowhere like this were illustrated all too clearly by the tragic deaths last year of two eight-year-old girls hit by a car when the driver suffered one behind the wheel.
Nuria Sajjad and her classmate Selena Lau were killed when a car, driven by Claire Fremantle, a 47-year-old mother of three, crashed through a fence and into them while they were sitting on the grass during an end-of-school tea party. . in Wimbledon, south-west London.
Fremantle was initially charged with dangerous driving but was cleared last week after medical tests confirmed she had epilepsy. It was her first seizure and she had no way of knowing she was at risk.
Now taking medication to reduce seizures, he has surrendered his driving licence to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA).
The strict rules mean drivers could face a £1,000 fine if they fail to tell the DVLA when they suffer any kind of seizure or blackout, and not just while driving.
Around one in 100 people (or 630,000 in the UK) suffer from epilepsy. Although it is usually considered a disease that affects adolescents and young adults, approximately 8,000 middle-aged and older adults are also diagnosed each year.
It is characterized by bursts of uncontrolled electrical activity in the brain that prevent nerve cells from sending signals to each other properly, triggering seizures in which everything from muscle control to senses like taste and smell shut down. goes completely crazy for a few minutes.
This causes seizures, which for some may simply mean that food tastes strange, while others may have such violent reactions that they lose consciousness.
Nuria Sajjad and her classmate Selena Lau were killed when a car, driven by mother-of-three Claire Fremantle, 47, crashed through a fence and into them as they sat on the grass during an end-of-school tea party in Wimbledon.
The main treatment involves giving anti-epileptic drugs to reduce the risk of seizures by modifying the electrical activity of brain cells so that they are less “excitable” and less likely to fail. In more severe cases, surgery may be necessary to remove a small part of the brain that is causing the seizures.
Other approaches include implanting a small electrical device inside the body and connecting it to the brain to disrupt chaotic signals between nerve cells, or following a ketogenic diet (low in carbohydrates and high in protein and fat), which is believed to reduce “excitability.” ” of nerve cells and can reduce the number of episodes by half.
In children, epilepsy is mainly due to brain abnormalities present from birth.
In many adult cases, like Laura’s, it is completely random.
But in older adults, it is often caused by damage to the brain’s electrical circuits due to aging-related health problems, such as strokes, dementia, and brain tumors (the risk of which increases as we age).
In fact, the ageing of the British population means that epilepsy is now more likely to develop in later life (over 65) than in childhood.
“The highest incidence of epilepsy is currently in older people,” says Dr Markus Reuber, consultant neurologist at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. “Risks increase with each year of life, but are also influenced by the conditions seen in older people.”
Unhealthy lifestyles can also put adults at greater risk.
A 2023 study in the journal Sleep found that people with sleep apnea (the snoring-related condition often associated with obesity, in which breathing is constantly interrupted during the night) have three times the risk of epilepsy than those who do not snore.
The theory is that reduced oxygen levels, caused by repeated interruptions in breathing, have a damaging effect on the brain’s wiring, making epileptic seizures more likely.
Around one in 100 people (or 630,000 in the UK) have epilepsy.
Obesity is a major risk factor for sleep apnea; Excess fat around the neck puts pressure on the airways when lying down.
“A seizure can happen without warning,” says Dr Andrew Nicolson, consultant neurologist and medical director of The Walton Centre, a Liverpool hospital specialising in neurological disorders.
“When electrical signals in the brain fail, that can happen very quickly.”
Seizures can also be caused by a variety of factors besides epilepsy, from a rare heart condition called long QT syndrome (which causes irregular heartbeats that lead to fainting and seizures) to alcohol withdrawal in binge drinkers who have had a session. intense. This is because alcohol suppresses the activity of brain cells; Withdrawal makes them more susceptible to hyperactivity, which triggers seizures.
One of the things that makes adult epilepsy difficult to diagnose is that many people do not collapse or have seizures (so-called tonic-clonic seizures).
Instead, they suffer focal seizures that produce subtle effects: a strange taste in the mouth, smelling things that aren’t really there, or a strong sense of déjà vu. In other words, things that few people would necessarily associate with a serious neurological condition.
Another sign of a seizure is freezing (being completely paralyzed for several minutes without losing sight of what is going on around you) or a growing feeling of fear or excitement in your stomach, like you are riding a roller coaster.
While tonic-clonic seizures tend to involve electrical disruption in several parts of the brain, which then affect multiple parts of the body, focal seizures often occur in isolated brain regions, so symptoms are milder and less obvious.
“If a focal seizure occurs in the part of the brain that controls hearing, you may hear noises that aren’t real,” says Dr. Reuber.
‘Or if you are driving and have a focal seizure, you may continue driving but not be able to turn properly around the next corner.
‘I’ve known people who had focal seizures and who would get on trains and travel miles to places they didn’t even know, or who would walk considerable distances without knowing why they were there.’
Typically, these patients would only be diagnosed if their condition progresses to a full tonic-clonic seizure.
“We sometimes see patients with severe tonic-clonic seizures who have had mild episodes for years with no idea they were a sign of epilepsy,” says Dr. Reuber.
This is exactly what happened to Laura. For six months or more before her breakdown, she had suddenly experienced strange sensations: a rollercoaster feeling in her stomach, a strong déjà vu or a sudden detachment.
‘I could carry on a conversation and not lose consciousness, but I would suddenly feel a wave of fear or be stunned for a minute.
‘It only happened two or three times a month; I never thought I would bother my GP with this.
‘When I told the doctors at the hospital, they said it was all part of epilepsy.
“My life changed instantly,” says Laura. “The doctors said I would have to take medication for the rest of my life and for the first year after the crisis I couldn’t drive or bathe myself.”
But thanks to a series of different medications, he has not suffered that episode again and is slowly putting his life back together, working part-time and venturing out more.
She says: “I’m stuck with epilepsy now, but I’m not going to live the rest of my life in fear of it.”
