Epilepsy Specialist Nurse, 10 years’ experience, UK

Abstract

This chapter discusses the experience of an Epilepsy Nurse with a patient with Dissociative Seizures. The patient had been brought up in social care and had a history of abuse of all kinds. She developed seizures as a teenager, which presented as blank spells and periods of “being absent.” She was then referred to a Neurologist, who diagnosed her with a Functional Disorder. The Neurologist told her this was due to anxiety, and there was no need for further investigation. The chapter then highlights the importance of keeping such individuals within the epilepsy services until they have been given access to the right pathway, or have at least engaged with appropriate services such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Although the authority of an epilepsy clinic can lead to a false sense of diagnostic certainty, it does protect patients within a service that knows their story. Later, the Epilepsy Nurse met the patient once again when he had been admitted after he had experienced five seizures at work. The Epilepsy Nurse hoped that the previous course of CBT had provided a quick fix and helped her to recover from a debilitating condition. What had happened, however, was the transference of her own symptoms to her partner.