Illnesses that will stay with you for your long life and one of those illnesses is epilepsy and culminates up as one of those patients with a pretty c. In epilepsy patients often complain about your can from losing consciousness so if youve got seizures what are your symptoms i have to be a jerk and demands especially in the morning which. One or 2 seconds most before reduce of consciousness into whole often do you have seizures once a day once a day squared off and it sounds quite often from your words quite often in the beginning but now its got used to for me its quite normal so. d you know i want to have enough sleep for it so. I try to prevent the separate well continue our talk in just a moment but 1st epilepsy is a chronic disease with a sudden onset but once it hits you it sticks with you for your whole life. Was on holiday with his family in spain when suddenly in the middle of the night his body started to shake and his muscle spasms sign ups is in his brain was firing like mad. It was a huge shock for his family. To come on and honestly. Social im like cant really describe how awful it was toms whole body was in a spot. And he was thrashing around. Always a he saw it was a horrible thing to see pushbutton says in. It was so intense that his family thought he was dying skipped the amount for somebody who has never seen a seizure its extremely dramatic and even traumatic. As it were soon. Toms family called an ambulance. But the doctors who saw him couldnt make a diagnosis. Of most of stunned miss football once a seizure is over its like detective work you have to look for clues as to what happened is that a serious disease has the brain been affected but all is there any damage and whats the cause and. Back home in germany tom vendettas had more seizures and always that night so he went to senior ologist thomas maya. And electroencephalogram tracks and records electrical signals in the brain. Thom hartmann e. G. During the day time and again at night. The resulting brain wave patterns can help with the diagnosis. Here you can see a sudden spike followed by a slow wave thats a typical wife for epilepsy and pretty much only occurs in people with epilepsy for content to clip see how to in the brain stimuli in information passed between neurons continuously with the help of neurotransmitters during an epileptic seizure that suddenly an excessive release of neurotransmitters enters or sometimes compared to a storm in the brain. He said really is like in your own place or an avalanche that spreads and knocks out other functions on seeing whether stroke its the loss of activity thats the problem if a loose fun activity. With that policy its an excess of activity in which the patient suddenly loses functional control. To hunt. While tom is having a seizure he doesnt actually know its happening. Its simple. For people close to someone with epilepsy to remain alert. The huge smile in him that law whenever tom got out of bed say to go to the bathroom. Id always get up to see if he was ok. But in fact he did quite often have a seizure in the bathroom my husband would bring the pillows the tom wouldnt bang his head against the tile floor but seizures during the night are of great concern because a really bad one could prove fatal. So the primary goal is to prevent seizures. Its important to determine the area of the brain where an optic seizure originates thats the precondition for proper treatment. This test for example aims to show how well the region of the brain is working thats associated with logic and spatial awareness. And thats because if and we need this information to determine which drug or what kind of treatment is appropriate or if surgery might be advisable in this case surgeries not needed and thats a great relief for tom and his girlfriend the drugs he takes succeed in preventing seizures. I hope it stays this way that i remain free of seizures in the years to come or even forever. And for. Tom and his girlfriend a members of an accordion orchestra and theyre rehearsing for their next performance. Hes doing well again and enjoying life despite living with a collapsing. Now all patient kunitz we get in. But 1st i will have a little talk with you. So youll be getting in just a minute but theres still time to have a little chat right now so could you give me an update on how would one. When you had your 1st seizure the 1st seizure also. Was a seizure with the loss of consciousness for less than one or 2 seconds like i must go to richard and my. Legs. When i didnt. Enough sleep and sleep deprivation. For 5 years until i got the 1st big seizure so you were really young so what would what kind of age should have been when there was a procedure that started when i was 1516 so and time off developments the into didnt recognize it but you thought well maybe its more yeah exactly so i thought maybe im a little bit different from the other persons actions from other person and. I thought thats the fault of the alcohol. Sort of thing. Went on until the. First big lose of consciousness a few months ago and then i thought now i have to make some make so it was a grand mal it would have been you just fall down and loss to consciousness for how many minutes exactly it was about one or 2 minutes so i dont know because i lost my conscience and. It was at home or was it was on the street when i fell down and people. When i woke up. And yet changed my life more in the way of being aware of. What im doing. You had to have stress like. Having seizures can be related to having stress actually so but now you are i think you are studying law right now so you would you want a lawyer of the. Judge even this could be some really stressful patients and so are you afraid about your future im not afraid but im more aware of my future so i think i want to try it and im ready to try it but if it doesnt work. I want continue with this job more to look for opportunities where i can have the same job but in a different way for example. Relaxation getting enough me time for example or giving the giving of sleep is this very important for you from me its the most important thing. Biggest trigger for seizure so sleep deprivation and consumption of alcohol all these 2 things like the biggest triggers for me and individuals so you just told me that this really changed your life so what did change what is different now the change. Of the most important change was happening and my my psychological aspects to the thing i cant all be seizures when im doing certain activity or going to a party or having like an x. Whats going to happen right i can control it whats going to happen and thats the thinking what do i want to do. Before going out. Trying to get a balance between. Between doing nothing to get the balance of my life you have so to be getting or e. G. Just a moment in the law to be around because it would mess around with the results because its a fair fight to pixelation but i will use this time by sleep and they get someone from ation suitability. And e. G. Is a task that detects electrical activity in the brain its useful in diagnosing inflammation and injuries of the brain and also epilepsy. With professor hall come he is the head of b. P. Looked ology. Here at the department for neurology at the berlin thanks for having me today and youre treating cutlets other patients we just have met so whats the special challenge in treating patients with perhaps some of the overall aim of all treatment is that the patients have a normal life and they have a good quality of life and they are true lets call it aims and one is seizure freedom option with your control but on the same level and equally important is that they have no side effects or at least only a small side effects from the medication they have to take for yourself or the kates and the sometimes is a small path wait to find the correct doses in the front to correct my to medication to reach the aim of good quality of life is every seizure is sure sign for epilepsy. No. This is just the reaction of the brain of the neurons in the brain to changes in environment for example if i would have a lot of salt in my body then my brain would react with an epileptic seizure but epilepsy means that you have an increased risk for recurrent epileptic seizures and in germany and other western European Countries the risk is 0. 7 percent to develop epilepsy so its very very important to to have a clear diagnosis and to do a lot of tests after the procedure yes of course because on the one hand you have to figure out if it was only one seizure or if the igi indicates you have an increased risk of more serious that would be epilepsy and the 2nd level is that you have to decide what kind of epilepsy is this and there are 2 major types its focal epilepsy where the seizures are coming from one part of the brain focus or if its generalized epilepsy where the seizures are starting in both sides of the brain and this can be differentiated by the igi for example and its important because treatment is different and prognosis is different having frequency zhorzh or you could ups it can change the patients life and its because there are some rules where they have to follow for example there are some restrictions was driving a car you have to be seizure free for at least 12 months to be allowed to drive a car this is ruled by the government but there are also other restrictions that when you look at swimming or taking a bath or Something Like this where you can have a risk if you have a seizure and patients should be aware of this. So what about jobs and education and occupation can you do every single kind of job with if you can do almost everything for example if you want to be a bus driver lorry driver this is not a lot if you have epilepsy before you can be a pilot and you cant have a job where you have to carry a weapon for example working at the Police Department or in the army but this is maybe one percent of all the jobs and 99 percent you can do with epilepsy mainly because youre a danger to other people and yes yes you can do harm yourself but its more important that its a danger to other people and what about working as an 18 specialist in front of monitors every day because this is flickering lights coming off those devices which could lead to seizures but this affects only patients who have socalled foetal sensitive epilepsy that means that they react to lights light and dark and this affects only one percent of the patient with a look see at the monitors of days they dont have the sticker and lights and 50 hertz flickering anymore so its not a problem usually you treat it with medication but sometimes you need to do surgery and patients where the neurosurgeon removes part of the brain as it myself can this really work. 18 year old david bangle is attending one of his regular checkups the nurses are getting him ready for an e. G. D. And electro and to follow. He underwent surgery 6 months ago neurosurgeons remove the part of the brain where his seizures originated from i feel i have much more freedom now i can stay out late with friends and my parents dont have to worry so much. David seizures began out of the blue when he was 7 probably triggered by a brain malformation he was given medication but the problem only got worse. 2013 i sometimes had seizures every 10 minutes that happen several times a week now they dont happen thats all right if medication doesnt help surgery is also an effective option before the operation electrodes are implanted on the surface of the cerebral cortex to pinpoint the origin of the seizure activity then a team of cross disciplinary specialists decide if its viable to operate in this location. Were told. Hes in for peoples lives to see if they treat patients of all ages. Tradition also as the doctors are discussing the size of the neurons that triggered this patient seizures after identifying it with implanted electrodes the surgeons removed the relevant parts of the brain the patients now fully recovered from the surgery. This can feel it but there are several areas in the brain not all of them but many where its possible to operate without causing deficiencies. Other parts of the brain can take over the tasks previously performed by the part of the brain thats removed without any signs of deficiency if its a tough treat. The patients remain in hospital under observation for several days with e. G. For tracking their brain wave patterns. If a patient suffers a seizure the recordings help the doctors diagnose the problem. David sanger has never regretted having the surgery hes planning on taking his driving test and traveling across europe hes looking forward to leading a completely normal life. So the igi examination is over use some gel in your hair some time for you to talk we just saw in the report that brain surgery might be in treatment option but now theres something new yes another approach is the concept of deep brain stimulation that means that you have 2 electrodes that are put in to operate it into the brain and stimulate was a lower level current and the patients dont feel this but it increases the in the brain and that causes a consequence. Optimal pathway and if you would suggest surgery you can even use a laser this is even new. So this is a poor has been approved in europe lets say 12 months ago and that means that you dont have an open operation into large craniotomy and operate on the patients but you would just make a small bore hole or for 0. 5 centimeters put in some probes to the region where you think the teachers are coming from and then you can put in some. Temperature and that relates the region of the structure the region of the brain and the success with respect which is identical to open surgery so its a very very interesting new approach. You dont need surgery youre taking medication so its a whole will be a work they work really well so i dont have big seizures. And sometimes i have this mask mostly in the morning but theyre more take care of taking. Epilepsy and occurs often in very young patients so what about the compliance of those patients for taking all the medication i think if their children are very young adolescents then the parents take care of this but when they are 131415 years old and older then they have to work on this on their own and i think the more they understand of their condition and the more they understand why they need the medication the compliance is better and thats why we spend some time to explain to them and we dont want them only to do what we say we want them to understand why they have to do this so you just completed the igi examination from car is to Something Special in it so that e. G. That we recorded today is normal and this is what i would expect because as we heard before he is free of the seizures the big seizures and so that e. G. The normal e. G. Is a confirmation of what he has told us before what advice would you give a patient who was diagnosed by perhaps he today so i would recommend to the patients that they really under. Try to understand what is the basis of this that they use the time they have was the doctor was the expert to ask questions on epilepsy on the prognosis on the ways of treatment also on the side effects or possible side effects of treatment and i think this is the best prerequisite to have an optimal treatment situation and optimal quality of life. And do you have a final message to someone whos affected. Very similar to that. So in my opinion its very important find a way to understand the cross and the consequences of. Your life. Maybe. Part of. It is important to have the courage to accept it. For us thank you so much for sharing your personal story with us and thank you for the information and if youve got any questions to ask the experts should write me. In good shape your Weekly Health show on d w that covers many aspects of health care we look at whats new in medical treatment nutrition fitness and beauty we discuss these topics in depth with specialists and offer you opportunities to pose your own questions so get in touch. Do you want to lower your Blood Pressure get rid of. Stress introduce pain you say there is no such miracle drug that could do that or yes there is its weaving. As if you are gathering breath and its you straight not exhale. Breathing is the most natural thing in the world but many of us are doing it all wrong these people are practicing breathing technique cloudier and hike a harder breathing therapist they help people breathe better which improves their overall wellbeing. I talked in 350 years day to day lives tend to make us very tense muscles a tense especially in and around the diaphragm we tense our shoulders especially if we work at a computer and all this tension prevents us from breathing properly often art as a result our breathing isnt bringing oxygen to every cell in the body the way it should these exercises are designed to ensure it does correct breathing technique affects every function in the body. If you wish for and what changes is that you get to know your body and your breathing much better so when youre at work say and youre not letting your breath flow properly then youre more likely to notice and react it makes a big difference. The few comprehensive studies done on breathing show that improved breath control can be life changing. It can help reduce Blood Pressure sooth pain and anxiety and prevent stress related disease diaphragmatic breathing triggers body relaxation response is there passing particles it gives the parasympathetic nervous system working just as im sure that activates nerve signals. And then the body regenerates its resources are topped up as multum a lady you feel rejuvenated. Can confirm the benefits of breath. For years she suffered from painful joints and rheumatism related inflammation conventional treatment didnt help. I had side effects from the medication i was prescribed. So i looked for alternatives because. Thats how she found breathing therapist on your schneider she works with you on to relax her body and relieve her pain. Yeah your breathing is good. Get that off in the off matter its about focusing your attention and you have to focus your attention on different parts of the body. And when youre doing that with your full consciousness the breath flows naturally its like little waves the body adjusts to the flow. And now im going to work on your legs. A loosen the muscles to allow the breath to flow more freely through the items. You have she helps lower my stress levels pain and sickness all stressful and im very susceptible to stress breathing therapy helps calm me down i can concentrate better im calmer and more relaxed and that reduces my pain. Try to straighten up from your sacrum and then exhale also. Breath Therapy Works on 3 levels physical mental and emotional conscious breathing helps you understand your body better and also makes you more alert. Exactly how this works has yet to be fully researched it all sounds a bit new agey 2 but even ancient civilizations knew that breathing properly has mental benefits in yoga the art of breathing is called pranayama. There are 3 phases of breathing inspiration post inspiration and active exploration the purpose of pranayama is to boost our energy and yoga is the life force. Studies suggest that deliberately breathing through the nose helps improve concentration and memory. It has a good effect in one way its very relaxing but its also invigorating and it helps focus the mind. And best of all breathing properly is free and can be done anywhere. Thats unfortunate a see you next week and until then lets all try to stay in good shape. From. Africa for my Research Project climate protection for students from 20 countries involved in a scientific expedition me to child powers to collect some all from to devise the same time to look at sea surface temperatures morning the project will help them to spread environmental awareness i come. Really wants to share that theres a lot that we can be cold comfort god in the 30 minutes on d. W. People. Our planets faithful companion. But is it also of potential habitat for humans probably scientists have worked intensively for 50 years to answer this question of the above is the living on the road 75 minutes on d w. O. T. Politics. Keep learning reality wait a 2nd we want the whole picture facts instead of make ideas shifts to live us. From a mountain reality to cryptocurrency to your top ace for live in an ever changing Digital World lets talk to devise a some. Shifts. On g. W. In the height of climate change. For cosmic. Whats in store for. One system for the future. E. W. Dot com for the major cities to get insight click counter. 50 years of religion is for peace people from many different faiths are working together toward a common goal the peaceful resolution of religious conflicts. Now female members or for religions for peace from the middle east or demanding a larger role for. The female peacemakers stores january 5th on jane w. This is the news live from berlin. Outrage on the streets of india the death toll reaches 25 in clashes between protesters and the Police Hundreds of thousands of people continue to rally across the country against a citizen citizenship law they say discriminates against muslims also coming up. A deadly Christmas Typhoon ravages the central philippines leaving a trail of death and destruction in its path typhoon fan phone calls at least 20 people as it destroys houses downstream and forces thousands to