Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome

Brain abnormalities caused due to any condition can give a rise to Lennox-Gastaut syndrome (LGS). If you were to look at the basic characteristics of LGS, it’ll be:

Multiple seizure types

Distinguished brain-wave pattern

Mental deficiency

In some cases, mental deficiency can range from small to deep cognitive damage. Usually, LGS onset is seen between the age group of 3 and 6. According to the common statistics of patients of LGS, it’s more prevalent in males than in females. Lennox-Gastaut syndrome is a rare condition and has a 0.3 percentage of occurrence in live births. It has been seen that 30 to 50 percent of children who suffer from LGS usually have a family history of juvenile spasms. It is a difficult to diagnose and treatment options are in scanty or difficult. Also, getting a control on seizures caused by LGS is very intermittent.

Common Characteristics Of Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome

Generally, LGS occurs in children between the age group of 2 and 6, but it may not be true for all and its onset can be before 2 years of age. The common characteristics shown by Lennox-Gastaut syndrome are:

Frequent multiple seizures – Including tonic-clonic/grand mal seizures & myoclonic seizure attacks.

Dizziness and loss of balance due to status epilepticus

Spasms due to seizure episodes

Slowdown of psycho-motor development

Changes in behavior or behavior disorders

Interictal occurring between seizures attacks or paroxysms

Diagnosis

To diagnose Lennox-Gastaut condition is very difficult because of seizures episodes in-between. Doctors usually start by looking at the medical history of the patient and look for signs that occurs prior to seizures. The common signs that doctors look are mental impedance, hearing and visual damage and tuberous sclerosis. Apart from these signs, doctors insist on studying various brain-wave patterns taken through EEG’s. Video monitoring is also helpful to note down seizure episodes and see the brain-wave at different intervals post & prior to seizure attacks. Apart from brain tests, common blood and urine tests are also conducted to provide the correct diagnosis and thereafter the correct treatment.

Treatments

Treatments for Lennox-Gastaut syndrome are difficult but few common ones are used to control seizure activities. Treatments may include:

Medicines

Seizure food diet that is ketogenic diet

Vagus nerve stimulation

Corpus callosotomy surgery

Sometimes, the combinations of above treatments are given to control the brain abnormalities and seizures attack. However, in most cases, it is very difficult to gain a control over children’s seizure activities caused by Lennox-Gastaut syndrome especially when there is a prevalence of a continuous seizure state. To control the repeated seizures, medicines such as rectal diazepam are advised by physician. Out of all these, ketogenic diet has proven to be more successful in controlling seizures with a combination of few medicines and treatments. Usually, children with LGS are treated with multiple drugs under close supervision to gain a control over seizures, if everything seems to fail.

Medical Marijuana For Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome

Medical marijuana has also showed some success as a treatment for Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. However more research / experiments are needed to further the knowledge to possibly give hope for medical marijuana to control seizures. So, if your child is suffering with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome (LGS), you can take help from internet and other resources to find more treatments that can benefit your child.