Patients with frontal lobe epilepsy may be particularly prone to being discriminated against in employment and subject to higher rates of termination due to the unusual motor symptoms, speech, vocal outbursts and cognitive/judgment symptoms displayed during frontal lobe seizures. Frontal lobe seizures also tend to come on suddenly and progress rapidly making it difficult for an employer to control the exposure of the seizure to others.Education, learning and cognitive functionPatients with frontal lobe epilepsy will likely also experience issues with learning and education. Many factors contribute to these issues including the impact of anticonvulsant medications. Anticonvulsant medications cause patients to feel "foggy" and sluggish. Drugs such as Topiramate cause problems such as mental blunting, word retrieval difficulties and irritability. Phenobarbital, Primidone and Vigabatrin can cause depression and suicidal tendencies. Stress and lack of sleep during exam periods can trigger seizures and many school sports teams restrict or ban people with epilepsy from sports for safety and liability reasons. People with frontal lobe epilepsy also exhibit dysfunctional cognitive skills and memory issues which can make learning challenging. Research has shown that frontal lobe epilepsy has a greater negative impact than other forms of epilepsy on cognitive functioning.
Due to their balance problems and irregular movements, individuals need to spend time learning how to safely transfer in their homes and in the community. This may include rising from and sitting in chairs safely.Due to the progressive nature of this disease, all individuals eventually lose their ability to walk and will need to progress to using a wheelchair. Severe dysphagia often follows, and at this point death is often a matter of months. Prognosis
No effective treatment or cure has been found for PSP, although some of the symptoms can respond to nonspecific measures. The poor prognosis is predominantly attributed to the serious impact this condition has on the quality of life. The average age at symptoms onset is 63 and survival from onset averages seven years with a wide variance. Pneumonia is a frequent cause of death. History
In 1877, Charcot described a 40-year-old woman who had rigid-akinetic parkinsonism, neck dystonia, dysarthria, and eye-movement problems. Chavany and others reported the clinical and pathologic features of a 50-year-old man with a rigid and akinetic form of parkinsonism with postural instability, neck dystonia, dysarthria, and staring gaze in 1951. Progressive supranuclear palsy was first described as a distinct disorder by neurologists John Steele, John Richardson, and Jerzy Olszewski in 1963. They recognized the same clinical syndrome in 8 patients and described the autopsy findings in 6 of them in 1963.Progressive supranuclear palsy was not a “new” disease in 1963, as 22 well-documented case reports had been identified in the neurologic literature between 1877 and 1963.