Epilepsy, demonic possessions, and fasting: another look at translations of Mark 9:16

What Will it Take to Move the Needle for Headache Disorders? An Advocacy Perspective

Discrimination toward people living with migraine and other headache disorders is widespread and socially accepted. Stigma toward these diseases is both a manifestation of these discriminatory attitudes and a sustainer of them. For those living with migraine and headache disorders, stigma limits the full expression of their lives, as well as the likelihood of receiving health care to reduce the burden. In the past decade, public advocacy organizations have emerged in the United States and internationally to counter the consequences of this stigma. These organizations have raised public awareness of these diseases, corrected misconceptions, and empowered millions of people affected by them. The Alliance for Headache Disorders Advocacy has focused on addressing the structural stigma inherent in discriminatory policies of employers, government agencies, and public institutions. While notable progress has been made, there is considerable work left to be done to increase resources and equity for people living with headache disorders.

The Spiritism as therapy in the health care in the epilepsy

OBJECTIVE

to present a brief history of Spiritism, the vision of epilepsy by Spiritism, and the potential of spirituality and religiosity care as complementary and coadjutants treatments in epilepsy.

METHOD

this is a brief review about the impact of faith, spirituality, and religiosity, particularly the Spiritism philosophy as complementary treatment to neurological disorders (particularly focusing on epilepsy) and mental health. We conduct a review of published articles (about religion/spirituality and epilepsy) in the Pubmed and SciELO databases.

CONCLUSION

the exercise of spirituality and religiosity can be a positive coping strategy to support the traditional therapy of patients with epilepsy and other neurological disorders. However, it is necessary to demystify myths and beliefs about the epilepsy and improve knowledge about this important health dimension among professionals, patients, and caregivers to explore their full treatment and supportive potential.

Spirituality and religion in epilepsy

Revered in some cultures but persecuted by most others, epilepsy patients have, throughout history, been linked with the divine, demonic, and supernatural. Clinical observations during the past 150 years support an association between religious experiences during (ictal), after (postictal), and in between (interictal) seizures. In addition, epileptic seizures may increase, alter, or decrease religious experience especially in a small group of patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Literature surveys have revealed that between .4% and 3.1% of partial epilepsy patients had ictal religious experiences; higher frequencies are found in systematic questionnaires versus spontaneous patient reports. Religious premonitory symptoms or auras were reported by 3.9% of epilepsy patients. Among patients with ictal religious experiences, there is a predominance of patients with right TLE. Postictal and interictal religious experiences occur most often in TLE patients with bilateral seizure foci. Postictal religious experiences occurred in 1.3% of all epilepsy patients and 2.2% of TLE patients. Many of the epilepsy-related religious conversion experiences occurred postictally. Interictal religiosity is more controversial with less consensus among studies. Patients with postictal psychosis may also experience interictal hyper-religiosity, supporting a "pathological" increase in interictal religiosity in some patients. Although psychologic and social factors such as stigma may contribute to religious experiences with epilepsy, a neurologic mechanism most likely plays a large role. The limbic system is also often suggested as the critical site of religious experience due to the association with temporal lobe epilepsy and the emotional nature of the experiences. Neocortical areas also may be involved, suggested by the presence of visual and auditory hallucinations, complex ideation during many religious experiences, and the large expanse of temporal neocortex. In contrast to the role of the temporal lobe in evoking religious experiences, alterations in frontal functions may contribute to increased religious interests as a personality trait. The two main forms of religious experience, the ongoing belief pattern and set of convictions (the religion of the everyday man) versus the ecstatic religious experience, may be predominantly localized to the frontal and temporal regions, respectively, of the right hemisphere.