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Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy (JME) is a relatively common syndrome that can occur between the ages of 6 and 26, although the majority of cases fall within the smaller timescale of 12 to 16 years. JME presents more commonly in females than males and has also been known as Janz Syndrome.  Symptoms  JME often presents with…

Category: Syndromes

Limbic Encephalitis (LE) is a very rare disease that’s often a cause of seizures and epilepsy. Most commonly affecting adults, but LE can affect approximately 1 in 150,000 to 300,000 children in the UK each year. It’s an auto-immune condition whereby the body's own antibodies begin to attack parts of the body, in the case…

Category: Syndromes

Unfortunately, there are still many cases where epilepsy is undiagnosed. Most recently, earlier this month there was a high profile case where 29-year-old actor, Amii Lowndes, who has appeared in Doctor Who and Skins, died from undiagnosed epilepsy. Amii’s death was caused by sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP).  Back in 2019, actor Cameron Boyce…

Category: Living with Epilepsy

Epilepsy is very varied and affects many people in different ways. There is still much that is unknown about epilepsy and more research is needed before we can fully understand it. One of the many differences that can illustrate this is a collection of childhood epilepsy syndromes.  There are new epilepsy syndromes included and classified…

Category: Syndromes

Sturge-Weber Syndrome (SWS) is an extremely rare epilepsy syndrome that the most recent figures indicate only occurs in around 1 in 20,000 births, but could be as few as 1 in 50,000.  With this syndrome, there is often a birthmark on one side of the face that’s often the first sign of SWS. This can…

Category: Syndromes

Unverricht-Lundborg Disease (ULD) is a very rare epilepsy syndrome that research indicates only affects between 1 to 4 children in every 100,000. Most children with ULD will develop tit between the ages of 6 and 16.  ULD is part of a group of epilepsy syndromes known as ‘progressive myoclonic epilepsies’ and is due to an…

Category: Syndromes