Watching someone you know or love having a seizure can be a truly frightening experience. Although there’s not a lot you can do at home to stop a seizure once it’s started apart from calling for emergency help or taking the patient to urgent care in Harker Heights, following are some tips to guide you in administering first-aid.

• Try to keep other people out of the way to allow for focused care
• Remove any hard or sharp objects from the person experiencing the seizure
• Place the individual on their side to create a clear airway for them, but do not try to restrain the person or hold them down
• If possible, try to time the length of the seizures and the time between seizures if they are intermittent in nature
• Do not place anything in the person’s mouth

Types of Seizures

Although seizures can occur from any number of reasons, following are the two most common.

A FOCAL ONSET SEIZURE The patient’s arm might start to move, or they may exhibit facial twitches which will be uncontrollable by them even though they’re still alert and aware. During this time, the patient may exhibit signs of “zoning out,” and they may not be aware of the incident afterwards.

A GENERALIZED SEIZURE Because this type of seizure involves multiple parts of the brain – unlike a focal onset seizure which only involves one part of the brain – individuals experiencing a generalized seizure most commonly do not know what is happening during the episodic event. This type of seizure will present itself through the following symptoms:

• The individual will become unresponsive and unaware of their surroundings or who is calling out to them
• The individual’s muscles will become extremely tense to the point that the phrase “stiff as a board” could apply – this portion of the seizure typically lasts only a few seconds
• The individual will then move into a phase of jerking motions that convulse over the body – this portion of the seizure can last anywhere between a few seconds to a few minutes
• Afterwards, the patient will regain consciousness and may appear confused or disoriented for a brief period

What You Can Do Today

Rather than having to frantically search for an “emergency room near me” at the time that you’re helping someone with a seizure, why not take steps right now to identify the facility’s physical location and place their contact information in your cell phone. These two pieces of life-saving information can be found at this site for Express ER in Harker Heights.