Infantile spasms (West syndrome).

West syndrome, otherwise known as infantile spasms, is an uncommon to rare and serious form of epilepsy in infants. It is named after the English physician, William James West (1793-1848), who first described it in an article published in The Lancet in 1841. Other names for it are “Generalized Flexion Epilepsy”, “Infantile Epileptic Encephalopathy”, “Infantile Myoclonic Encephalopathy”, “jackknife convulsions”, “Massive Myoclonia” and “Salaam spasms”. The name “infantile spasms” is used to describe both the seizure type and the syndrome.

Epilepsy.

Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder that is characterized by recurrent unprovoked seizures. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms due to abnormal, excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain. About 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy at any one time. Epilepsy is usually controlled, but not cured, with medication, although surgery may be considered in difficult cases. Not all epilepsy syndromes are lifelong – some forms are confined to particular stages of childhood. Epilepsy should not be understood as a single disorder, but rather as a group of syndromes with vastly divergent symptoms but all involving episodic abnormal electrical activity in the brain.