Emergency management of the seizuring patient

This workshop discussed the causes, types and management of seizures in dogs. It outlined the processes that need to be carried out when a patient presents to the practice during a seizure

A seizure is a clinical manifestation of excessive hyperexcitability in the cerebral cortex. There is a lot of electrical activity going on in the brain and it is not being coordinated in the way it normally is, so the seizure is the clinical manifestation of that electrical activity.

There are two different types of seizure: epileptic seizures, which are essentially a result of intracranial disease, or reactive seizures, the result of a natural response by the brain to some sort of disturbance in the body, such as a toxin or head trauma.

Tonic clonic is a term used to describe a generalised seizure when it happens. The tonicity is the generalised muscle rigidity - the muscles fully contract, the legs go out and they will not bend, they are hypertonic. Clonic refers to rhythmic convulsions or paddling that the patient does. A lot of seizures have these two distinct stages where initially the patient goes really rigid and falls to one side, and then this is followed by the convulsing.