Seizures are sudden and excessive repetitive discharges of overexcited neurons in the brain, resulting in a sudden and transient disturbance of brain function that manifests clinically as transient sensory disturbance, limb twitching, loss of consciousness, behavioural disturbances or abnormalities of autonomic nervous function. They can be divided into grand mal seizures, petit mal seizures, limited seizures and psychomotor seizures with the common features of intermittency, short duration and stereotypy.
Symptoms
Absence, loss of consciousness
Seizures with loss of consciousness
Falling, stiffening of the body
Twitching of the muscles
Fatigue
Acupuncture treatment of seizures has a good effect in controlling the duration of seizures and prolonging the interval, especially in preventing seizures and reducing the frequency of seizures. Currently, the overall efficacy rate is about 80%.
As for the mechanism of acupuncture in treating seizures, it has been found that the abnormal EEG waves can be made to disappear by acupuncture, suggesting that acupuncture can achieve a therapeutic effect by suppressing abnormal EEG waves in epilepsy. Animal studies have also shown that electroacupuncture can induce a tendency to synchronise the EEG in rats, possibly by strengthening the inhibitory processes in the brain to suppress seizures.