Thursday, November 02, 2006
Dispelling Myths About Epilepsy
Yesterday I was asked a few questions about my epilepsy. One lady was concerned that the screen-saver on her computer may have caused me to have a seizure. Another lady thought that a piece of candy she gave me may have caused the seizure. Both fortunately were false. Although flashing lights within a certain Hz can cause some people to have seizures, the moving screen-saver she had would not meet the criteria. As for candy, I have not found any information on candy ever causing seizures.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
We spent some time at the EMU at Wake Forest a few weeks back and finally remembered to bring an old Nintendo 64 that we had considered taking to Goodwill. I gave it to Dr. Bell (head of the Dept) and asked about the issue re: video games and seizures and he kind of laughed it off. Saying if we couldn't use the game unit in the "day room" at the EMU, it would be for technical and not medical reasons. But he knew the hospital could use it, so we were quite pleased.
After all, when a seizure is reported on the EMU, how are the nurses and doctors alerted? An alarm and a strobe light in the hallway!
Yep. Evidently only a few games, such as one of the Pokemon games sold in Japan, have the effect of causing seizures. Thank goodness I don't have problems with it... I don't know if I could make it without my games...
;)
Post a Comment