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Epilepsy glossary - C
Catamenial epilepsy – when epileptic seizures only happen at certain times during a woman’s menstrual cycle. This might be at ovulation or during her period. Some women have seizures at particular times during their cycle and at other times: this is not catamenial epilepsy.
Cause – the reason why someone’s epilepsy has started. Some people have a physical cause (symptomatic epilepsy) such as a scar on their brain, because of a head injury or due to an infection. For others, their epilepsy is genetic or inherited (idiopathic epilepsy).
Childhood Epileptic Syndrome – a type of epilepsy that happens in children and young people, and follows a particular, typical pattern: the age that the seizures start, the type of seizures, the EEG recording and the progression or outcome. Some syndromes are benign and either go away or have little impact on the child. Others are severe and can affect the child’s behaviour, learning and life expectancy. This is sometimes just referred to as a ‘syndrome’.
Chronic side effect – side effects that happen after a drug has been taken for a long time, usually many years. What the side effect is like varies from one person to another and one drug to another. Chronic means long-term, it does not mean ‘really bad’.
Clusters – when a series of seizures happen close together in time, with gaps between each cluster.
Community care assessment – an assessment done by a social worker to help identify any needs that someone may have due to a disability or condition, and to identify what help they can get. This is also often called an ‘assessment of needs’ and should involve a risk assessment.
Complementary therapies – these are treatments and therapies that are sometimes used alongside conventional medications. Complementary therapies include aromatherapy, acupuncture, homeopathy and reflexology. These therapies are not generally used to treat epilepsy but some people use them alongside anti-epileptic drugs. Some therapies can make seizures worse.
Complex partial seizures (CPS) – seizures that involve just part (not the whole) of the brain. The person will not be fully conscious and they are often very confused and may not remember what happens during the seizure. During CPS the person may behave strangely or make repetitive movements called automatisms. CPS that happen in the temporal lobe are often about two to three minutes long (about the length of a song) and in the frontal lobe, about 15 – 30 seconds long (about the length of a TV advert). CPSs that happen in the temporal lobe are sometimes called temporal lobe epilepsy.
Concordance – this describes a relationship between a ‘doctor’ and a ‘patient’: the individual is responsible for making decisions about their healthcare and treatment, and the doctor supports and helps the individual to do this.
Convulsive seizure – a seizure where the person’s body jerks or shakes. It is another name for a tonic clonic seizure.
CT or CAT scan – this is a type of scanning machine that takes X-ray pictures to show the inside of the body. CT stands for Computerised Axial Tomography. In epilepsy, CT scans may be used to look at the structure of someone’s brain to see if there is a structural cause for their epilepsy. Nowadays, MRI scans are used more often than CT scans.
