The Spike
If a special kind of spike appears on the chart when your brain waves are measured, you have epilepsy; it reveals an electrical storm going on in your head.
The symptoms range from short blackouts to frequent violent convulsions, and can include bizarre hallucinations and feelings of acute fear. Research shows how the spike disrupts the brain's marvellous control systems but, as yet medical efforts to restore control have not been very successful.
This film shows epileptic fits happening, and also explains what the onlooker should and should not do. Most sufferers can live with these strange events inside their heads, but they are also impaled on another kind of spike: public prejudice, which can hurt far more than the epilepsy itseit.
Narrator DR PETER FENWICK
Film editor ROGER DAVIES
Editor SIMON CAMPBELL-JONES Written and produced by MARTIN FREETH
( Repeated next Sunday)