Talk:Generalized tonic–clonic seizure

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 8 September 2021 and 15 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Cat raupe.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 21:42, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 19 November 2018 and 14 December 2018. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Musc2016SC. Peer reviewers: Atrmd1.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:11, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Origin of the term Grand Mal seizure
Can we get something on the page about the origin of the term Grand Mal seizure? - JNighthawk (talk) 09:38, 8 March 2008 (UTC)


 * And a citation on this suggestion that the term "grand mal" or "gran mal" is somehow deprecated or discouraged in clinical practice nowadays, as this doesn't tally with my experience at all.  tomasz.  12:57, 30 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm currently reading Musicophilia and notice that Oliver Sacks seems to be using the term grand mal in his 2007 publication. My understanding would be that these terms (grand mal and petit mal) are lacking in comparison to such terminology as tonic-clonic because they are less descriptive (meaning "very bad", and "not-so-bad", in my understanding). I don't know, however, if its appropriate to go so far as to say they are "discouraged and rarely used in a clinical setting". Does anyone have a citation or explaination? ./zro (⠠⠵) 01:04, 4 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't know if this will help, but my doctors have used both grand mal and petit mal in clinical settings in the past week (week of Jan 26, 2009). SamWhitey (talk) 04:03, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I concur; my sister has photosensitive epilepsy, and her siblings (myself included) have had to undergo testing for the same. The terminology consistently used by neurologists and A&E staff (after grand mal seizures) was the French grand/petit mal. DrPizza (talk) 23:16, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

It's french in origins is it not? I have grand mal epilepsy and the term doesn't bother me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Radiojonty (talk • contribs) 05:17, 26 February 2009 (UTC)


 * They are French in origin, Grand meaning large and petit (pronounced peti) meaning small. And this whole thing about certain terms falling out of favor among neurologists is silly. I had juvenile onset epilepsy and I was forced to so see a special therapist to "help me deal" with being epileptic. I felt worse after talking to her and all I took away was her telling me I should not use the term epilepsy because it had negative connotations and that the term seizure disorder was preferred. Yeah, because the word disorder has no negative connotations. Sorry to hijack the discussion page for my personal story, I just thought it was relevant in the what should we call it discussion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.199.87.102 (talk) 00:37, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I have removed the the phrase gran mal from the text, which appears to be a layman's mishearing or mistyping of grand mal. A quick check of Principles of Neuroscience, by Kandel, et al shows only the use of the term grand mal, and Stedman's Medical Dictionary has the same. I could provide additional references or provide more detailed citations for these, if needed.


 * "Grand" and "petit" are falling out of favor because they are often taken as reference to severity. Tonic-clonic seizures can be no more severe than absence seizures in outward appearance, with the clonic phase being almost imperceptible (externally) twitching in the tonic stiffened limbs. Also, TC seizures do not necessarily cause loss of consciousness. Like absence seizures they can cause loss of awareness of environment while maintaining an internal experience of awareness and duration, with environmental perception ranging from entirely intact to obscured by visual, auditory and tactile hallucinations, most often a mixture of these. Also, the effects on muscle tone are not necessarily so severe as to cause one to fall down. The essential differences are the tonic-clonic effects and generalized vs. localized effects on EEG, although tonic-clonic can begin with the same local ictal EEG ("spike and dome") as absence type. As with many, if not most, cases of diagnostic definition, many of the specific signs and symptoms that are initially used to differentiate end up being used as defining characteristics, producing exaggerated definitions, while in the real world those differences and the conditions themselves are usually not so extreme.

Drmcclainphd (talk) 14:58, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

"Swallow their tongue"
The term usually refers to the tongue root falling and blocking the airway, and the comment there is irrelevant to the subject, as far as I know it can't happen in tonic-clonic seizures either, because of the level of consciousness attained, but it needs to be changed somehow. SurDin (talk) 11:05, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

This is a common myth I encounter often with my TC epilepsy. The tongue is attatched to the floor of the mandible by an anchor called the "frenulum linguae", so it cannot block the airway. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/219561/frenulum-linguae Radiojonty (talk) 18:08, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Expanded the article with a little better detail on TC seizures and inserted a reference, but it does not appear at the bottom - I thought this was automatic. Could someone do this?... thanks!— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 04:20, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Assessment
This is in no way a B-class article. Reason: only the first paragraph contains any citations/references/sources at all. — InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 04:20, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree. This article lacks citations, and the information contain therein is questionable at best. — InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 04:20, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified
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 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.epilepsy.com/epilepsy/looking_brain.html

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Proposed Work Plan for Updating Article
I want to start by expanding the general description of the topic to provide a concise definition of the tonic-clonic type movements and list the other types of seizures in parentheses. I will also expand the other possible ways of inducing a tonic-clonic seizure other than ECT. I want to rename the "Phases" section to "Prodome, Phases, and Recovery" and add more specific information on Recovery. I also plan to expand the description of the tonic and clonic phases. I will add a "Status Epilepticus" heading with description and propensity/percentage of progression from tonic-clonic seizures to status epilepticus as well as Wikipedia internal link as necessary. I will also add a small "Diagnostic and Management" section with a synopsis of management tools, an EEG tracing and a link to the full section as described in the full "Epileptic Seizure" topic in Wikipedia. In general, I don't want to restate too much that is already in the Epileptic Seizure section so I'll cross-reference that and link to that page as necessary.

I plan to also add risk factors for generalized tonic-clonic seizures for adults and children. I will draw this information from PubMed within the Wikipedia guidelines for that source. This article also needs a picture for the tonic/clonic physical characteristics and if possible a video as this would be helpful in showing the physical characteristics of this type of seizure. As far as sources, I am planning to primarily use Access Medicine and Clinical Key. I will use "Everyday Words for Public Health Communication" to ensure avoidance of jargon. Additionally, I will get a few other medical lay persons to read the entire entry to test for clarity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Clarkbnoble (talk • contribs) 20:42, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Peer Review of Musc2016SC's edits - Excellent Additions and Edits Overall
- The article was very coherent which lent to a very nice flow throughout the article. I like the layout and the specific changes that you made to different headings in the article. I think the video is very informative and is a good representation of how traumatic a seizure can feel to a patient. I also think the 'See Also' section is very thorough.

- The article was very clear and understandable. You did a really nice job of using hyperlinks to other pages when appropriate to give the reader an opportunity to quickly look up certain medical terms that could not be avoided when writing this particular article. I thought that everything was relevant and nothing in the article was distracting. I think you did a wonderful job really honing in on this subject and avoided going off on tangents associated with seizures in general. The article is to the point, in a good way.

- The article is neutral and balanced. I did not find any information to be biased and all of the information seemed to be from up to date and credible sources that were cited appropriately.

Some recommendations:

1.) The word 'Auras' is used in the section titled 'Prodrome' without a hyperlink or description. If there is not an article related to auras, I would suggest briefly describing what they are for context.

2.) A few of the sentences in the Diagnosis section could use citations. Not sure if those sentences were already there or not before you started editing.

3.) Personal preference, but I think it would be nice to make bulleted lists out of the sentences where you list out a number of risk factors, effects, symptoms, etc. You could do that in both the 'Causes' section and the 'Postictal phase' section.

4.) You use quotes in the Diagnosis section, which you cited, but I was wondering if you should say something like: "According to .... ,they describe the EEG changes as..." I understand why you used quotes because it is hard to put that in your own words but I think just saying where those words come from in the sentence is helpful.

Overall, really nice job! I had trouble coming up with recommendations so they are a bit nitpicky.

Atrmd1 (talk) 23:26, 9 December 2018 (UTC)