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Video games and epilepsy

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Since the first video games appeared among us, their use has been normalized in youth. Also, since 1980, the possible cases of epilepsy that could be related to this activity have been reported. The culmination of this rapid evolution occurred in 1992, in which the sale of video games reached a level previously unknown and reached a level similar to that of concern for the foreseeable risk posed by games.

So far only about 50 cases are known that may have some relationship with a game room or television at home. Based on these cases, the possible characteristics of the patients were analyzed. The mean age of patients is 13 years and 75% are men, that is, they are characteristics of the type of child that often plays with video games.

A third of these young people had had a previous epileptic portillo that cannot be related to video games and half had presented epileptiform discharges in the electroencephalogram with photostimulation in the laboratory.

For epileptic patients, only 5% are sensitive to periodic photostimulation. Consequently, videogame is not in all cases the factor that has caused the epileptic jam, but it is the trigger factor in these “photosensitive” patients who previously tend to do so.

These patients present the attacks produced by the following stimuli: television (40%), solar rays of different intensity (35%), lighting of the discos (25%), etc.

In a group of epileptic patients, those who have had the first port between 10 and 14 years, most women and from the 25 years less influential in photosensitivity. In most cases epilepsy is generalized with tonic-clonic movements, myoclonic shaking of the body and random attentions shortly after visual stimulation. The risk of port emergence is related to the intensity, frequency and contrast of the visual stimulus. Sensitivity to television, for example, appears when viewed from a distance between 0.5 and 2 meters.

Video games and epilepsy. Some observations

Children are the most important risk group. Epilepsi jam can occur randomly playing with video game, usually with sleep or emotional factors. In cases where the home TV screen is used for these games, children are very close and television images are a visual stimulus for photosensitive epileptic patients. Video game, along with television, is a motivating factor, in addition to influencing the lights and/or colors that are turning off.

The most relevant epidemiological study is conducted in Britain by Fish and its collaborators. They could relate to video games to measure the incidence and influence of photosensitivity. The first port met 118 cases of which the majority (103 cases) were approximately 15 years old. The number of cases expected unrelated to video games in this age range was less than 66. Most patients showed a photosensitive reaction in the electroencephalogram and presented a history of attacks caused by visual stimuli.

Therefore, the limitation of the images that “flash” and the patterns that are repeated in television and video games has been requested. Video games are accompanied by a note that warns of this danger. The risk of a jam from playing video games or watching TV in 95% of epileptics is practically zero in pine nuts that do not have photosensitivity.

In cases where there is a high photosensitivity and therefore there is a high risk of reappearance of the port, the balproate should be taken in tablets until the age is met. If the stimulus provoked by the port is known, this contact should be avoided. However, whether it is this danger or not, putting children less than 2 meters from TV is a measure to take for everyone.