Twelve Key Points to Remember for an Effective Response to Seizures

Emergency medical teams and law enforcement personnel can reduce the risk of injury and a fatal outcome by remembering a few key points when responding to reports of a seizure or someone acting strangely.

• When a report comes in about someone acting strangely or creating a disturbance, always consider the possibility that a seizure is taking place or has just occurred.
  
• Check for a medical identification card or bracelet indicating that the person has epilepsy.
  
• If family members or bystanders say that the person has epilepsy, assume that the observed behavior is seizure-related.
  
• Seizure activity in the brain may affect speech, consciousness, and movement to such an extent that a person cannot respond or interact normally during the seizure or immediately afterwards.
  
• Seizure symptoms may in rare cases include running, spitting, shouting, screaming, flailing movements or abusive language. Remember that these actions are involuntary, not under conscious control.
  
• Confusion and disorientation may last for some time after a seizure ends, but will gradually improve.
  
• Actions during a seizure are undirected and not under conscious control. Arrests solely on the basis of seizure activity may be discriminatory.
  
• People who are in the midst of a seizure or who have just had one should not be forcibly restrained because such restraints may injure them. In addition, people in these circumstances may misinterpret the actions of medical personnel as an attack on them and they may react to protect themselves by forcibly resisting, placing themselves and medical personnel at risk for injury.
  
• People with epilepsy who are taken into custody for any reason should continue to get their medication. Failure to take medication on time could produce fatal rebound seizures.
  
• Placing someone who is having a seizure, or has just had a seizure, face down, in a choke hold and/or hog-tying them, can obstruct breathing and cause death.
  
• People with epilepsy who have a seizure while in custody should receive prompt medical attention.
  
• People with epilepsy are normal, law abiding people with an episodic medical disability over which they have no control. They deserve to be treated with respect.