Karnataka PGET Medicine MCQ Answer 27

The correct answer is B

The patient may be found in the street, the hospital, or the emergency room. The patient may complain of an "aura," feel he is "about to have a seizure," experience a brief petit mal "absence," exhibit the repetitive stereotypical behavior of continuous partial seizures, the whole-body tonic stiffness or clonic jerking of grand mal seizures, or simply be found in the gradual recovery of the postictal phase. Patients experiencing grand mal seizures can injure themselves, and generalized seizures prolonged for more than a couple of minutes can lead to hypoxia, acidosis, and even brain damage.

What to do:

* If the patient is having a grand mal seizure, stand by him for a few minutes until his thrashing subsides, to guard against injury or airway obstruction. Usually only suctioning or turning the patient on his side is required, but breathing will be uncoordinated until the tonic-clonic phase is over.

What not to do:

* Do not stick anything in the mouth of a seizing patient. The ubiquitous padded throat sticks may be nice for a patient to hold and bite on at the first sign of a seizure, but do nothing to protect his airway, and are ineffective when the jaw is clenched.
* Do not rush to give intravenous diazepam to a seizing patient. Most seizures stop in a few minutes. It is diagnostically useful to see how the seizure resolves on its own; also, the patient will awaken sooner if he has not been medicated. Reserve diazepam for genuine status epilepticus.

Category: Karnataka PGET 2007 MCQs