Sep 24, 2026 · 47 min · 12 segments
What exactly is epilepsy, and what should you know if someone in your life has a seizure? In this episode of *Epilepsy Unplugged*, Taylor and Melanie get back to the basics with an Epilepsy 101…
Melanie LeonardHost
Taylor GoldenthalHostWe were talking about this the last time we met of what were we going to talk about for our September episode.
And it just kind of came to the general question of like, well, what is epilepsy? Like someone who's listening to this, right? You're researching, you're Googling, you discovered the foundation because maybe you were recently diagnosed or a loved one was and you're trying to better understand it.
I think it's a great call out that, you know, we take a pause here now that we've started back up again to just talk about what seizures are, what epilepsy is, and a little bit about what to do if you see someone having a seizure.
So I guess like first and foremost, What is a seizure? And I'll ask you, Melanie, because you come with quite a bit of training.
Share with the audience a little bit about maybe what gives you some additional authority to speak on it other than personal experience.
So, um, of course here at the epilepsy foundation, both you and I are board members, right? And so on the board, we're all serve on different committees and I, um, co-chair our seizure first aid committee.
And so part of that responsibility is going out into the communities that we serve and actually teaching, uh, seizure first aid certification.
It's a two year certification provided by the National Epilepsy Foundation Office funded by the CDC.
And so it's an accredited program that really allows us to teach kind of what seizures are, what epilepsy are, the different types of seizures, and then provide that first aid certification on the training.
So that's definitely something to reach out to us about if that's something that you need.
So a seizure is just any time the electrical activity in your brain is not functioning properly.
So what a seizure is, is just when there's a temporary interruption in the normal electrical signals that happen in the brain.
Think about it as like an electrical storm in the brain or a short circuit in the brain.
We were talking about this the last time we met of what were we going to talk about for our September episode.
And it just kind of came to the general question of like, well, what is epilepsy? Like someone who's listening to this, right? You're researching, you're Googling, you discovered the foundation because maybe you were recently diagnosed or a loved one was and you're trying to better understand it.
I think it's a great call out that, you know, we take a pause here now that we've started back up again to just talk about what seizures are, what epilepsy is, and a little bit about what to do if you see someone having a seizure.
So I guess like first and foremost, What is a seizure? And I'll ask you, Melanie, because you come with quite a bit of training.
Share with the audience a little bit about maybe what gives you some additional authority to speak on it other than personal experience.
So, um, of course here at the epilepsy foundation, both you and I are board members, right? And so on the board, we're all serve on different committees and I, um, co-chair our seizure first aid committee.
And so part of that responsibility is going out into the communities that we serve and actually teaching, uh, seizure first aid certification.
It's a two year certification provided by the National Epilepsy Foundation Office funded by the CDC.
And so it's an accredited program that really allows us to teach kind of what seizures are, what epilepsy are, the different types of seizures, and then provide that first aid certification on the training.
So that's definitely something to reach out to us about if that's something that you need.
So a seizure is just any time the electrical activity in your brain is not functioning properly.
So what a seizure is, is just when there's a temporary interruption in the normal electrical signals that happen in the brain.
Think about it as like an electrical storm in the brain or a short circuit in the brain.
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