Describing dissociative seizures
There are several different types of seizures, and they can happen for many different reasons. Seizures that are not due to epilepsy are sometimes called 'non-epileptic seizures'. They can have a physical cause such as low blood sugar (hypoglycaemia) or something related to the way the heart is working.
Or non-epileptic seizures may have a psychological cause. Other names for non-epileptic seizures with a psychological cause include 'non-epileptic attack disorder' and 'dissociative seizures'. We mostly use the term 'non-epileptic seizure' because it is a widely used term.
What causes epileptic seizures?
Epileptic seizures are caused by a disturbance in the electrical activity of the brain (and so they always start in the brain). Our brain controls the way we think, move and feel, by passing electrical messages from one brain cell to another. If these messages are disrupted, or too many messages are sent at once, this causes an epileptic seizures.
What happens to the person during the seizure depends on where in the brain the seizure activity happens.
Around 1 in 5 people (20%) diagnosed with epilepsy who are then assessed at specialist epilepsy centres are found to have non-epileptic seizures (NES). This may be partly because epilepsy and NES can look very similar, and can affect people in similar ways. However, the difference between epileptic and non-epileptic seizures is their cause.
Non-epileptic seizures
Non-epileptic seizures (NES) are not caused by disrupted electrical activity in the brain and so are different from epilepsy. They can have a number of different causes.
