My Mum Has Epilepsy

Living with epilepsy has its ups and downs, the funny times and the not so funny times, but throughout, there is always hope. By just getting on with it one can make life genuinely easier. Learning to laugh helps, as does realizing that others have a similar condition.

Epilepsy, traditionally the Cinderella of medicine, now has a higher profile thanks to the efforts of the World Health Organisation who have led a campaign called Out of the Shadows, to make the public more aware of the condition. In particular, there has been much more awareness of the plight of women with epilepsy and their reproductive health, especially the problem of certain anti-convulsant medications and their effects on the unborn child. This new edition strengthens the focus on women and gives a strong update on drugs and surgery, a sometimes neglected but modern approach which may actually cure epilepsy.

This book provides an essential one-stop introduction to the key concepts, issues, policies and practices affecting child welfare, with particular emphasis on the changing nature of the relationship between child welfare and social policy. No other book brings together such a wide selection of material to form an attractive and indispensable teaching and learning resource. Child welfare and social policy provides readers with an historical overview of child welfare in England and Wales; high quality contributions from leading authorities in the field; discursive introductions to each section that set individual chapters in the broader context of childhood studies and case study material to bring discussions to life. Key topics covered include morality and child welfare; relations between law, medicine, social work, social theory and child welfare; children's rights and democratic citizenship and children as raw material for 'social investment'. Child welfare and social policy is invaluable reading for students and academics in social policy, sociology, education and social work. It is also a useful resource for health and social work professionals wishing to follow current debates in theory and practice.

The four historical characters on the coverJulius Caesar, Joan of Arc, Fedor Dostoevsky, and Vincent Van Goghare all understood to have had epilepsy, but they also had successful lives as well. That is the key point of this book. Epilepsy is a curious and often misunderstood chronic disorder of the brain that affects approximately 50 million people across the globe in a variety of ways. Characterised by recurrent seizures as a result of excessive electrical discharges in a group of brain cells, epilepsy has extreme diversity with over forty different types of seizures. Besides the medical impact, the prejudices and social stigma that surround epilepsy worldwide are often more difficult to overcome than the seizures themselves. While Time Well Spent with Epilepsy is simply a memoir of my eventful life and times with epilepsy, the book hopes to highlight and demonstrate, along with the struggles surrounding the condition, that epilepsy is not necessarily an obstacle to a persons progress through life. People can have successful careers and lives despite the downsides of epilepsy.

1977 was, for one fourteen year old boy the year that changed his life - the year he was diagnosed with epilepsy.Glyn Marston woke up in the middle of the road early one August morning and had no recollection of how he got there, he didn't realise that this was the beginning of the end of life as he knew it.Glyn was eventually witnessed in an epileptic seizure and was forced to accept that his life would never be the same again, accepting that he had an illness that killed his mum's sister in 1961 was to be a terrifying experience - for she died 18 months before Glyn was born and at the age of fourteen.Glyn Marston tells of his struggle to accept a change of life whereas he would be confined to his house for his own safety, a time when the family were advised not to speak about the condition because folk didn't really understand epilepsy and ignorance would be evident because of the stigma attached to the illness.Glyn Marston recalls a painful time of his life, the year that was stolen from him because of epilepsy- 1977 was Glyn's first year of an illness that he had to try to understand, his first year of epilepsy.

It is widely agreed that there is a need to transform care and support services. 'Supporting People' explores with service users, practitioners, carers and managers what person-centred support means to them, what barriers stand in the way and how these can be overcome.