Work and School

 Epilepsy can have a significant effect on your work and school life.  It is very important that you let your employer/teach know that you have epilepsy and inform them of what to do in an emergency.   Make sure they know to keep the patient on their side and to keep their airways open and if the patient was out for a significant amount of time (longer than 30 seconds) or is very groggy afterwards make sure they are taken to a doctor and then sent home to rest with someone to supervise them.

Epilepsy can create feelings of embarassment, you can have difficulties with co workers or other students, and the side effects from medication can make some activities difficult to complete.  Use whatever techniques/resources you can to help you. 

 1) To assist with memory, keep a notepad with you at all times so you can write everything down, this will put a lot less pressure on your memory.

2) Try to tackle tasks one at a time if you can.  Multitasking puts a lot more pressure on the brain to remember so if you can simplify your work and school life in this area, do so

3) Practice Memory Building Techniques such as focus, visualisation etc to help improve and retain information more effectively.  To get more techniques on helping improve your memory get this e-book.

4)  Most limportantly, be open and honest with your school teachers and your employers and if there is a particular struggle you are facing be upfront about it so a solution can be reached.  Trying to hide it simply masks the problem and makes it worse

5) For parents and loved ones give those with epilepsy all the love and support you can as epilepsy can diminish a person's sense of self esteem and self worth.  The more confident a person is, the more able they are to withstand the daily struggles and not slip into withdrawal and denial