Volunteers urgently needed in Lanarkshire for telephone helpline
5th October 2004
Leading care charity Quarriers will shortly open an "Epilepsy Support Line" funded by the Lottery Community Fund, to offer support to young people with epilepsy. But before they do, they are anxious to recruit young volunteers to staff the support line. The aim is to support 250 young people although it is anticipated that parents, siblings and friends of the young people with epilepsy will also contact the centre. The helpline will be operated by 10 - 12 volunteers and a full-time development worker. The volunteers may have epilepsy themselves or perhaps have a close relative or friend with the condition.
Young people with epilepsy face exceptional difficulties during the period of transition to adulthood when communication with their families about their condition can often break down. Ruth Miller, Quarriers Support Line Project Manager says: "In some cases they have only recently been diagnosed with the condition and don't feel they can talk about it even to those closest to them. This is where our specialised Telephone Support Line hopes to make a difference. "
The service will be available to people in the North and South Lanarkshire areas and promoted via schools, health and youth services. The service aims to reach isolated young epilepsy sufferers, helping them develop their social network and access the services they need. There is already an epilepsy helpline in Scotland but this is not specifically for young people.
"Young people face different social issues. They want the acceptance of their peers but face various degrees of stigma. They also want independence but often have to cope with the over protectiveness of parents. What they need is someone to talk to who has personal experience of what they are going through and we believe a telephone helpline is a great way to reach them."
If you would like to volunteer to staff the helpline, please call 01505 616066 for further information
Notes to editors:
The provision of support to people with epilepsy has been a core activity of Quarriers since the 1960s. The charity runs Scotland's only residential epilepsy assessment centre, Hunter House in Renfrewshire, which receives the most complex cases in the country referred by health boards, GPs and neurologists. While its Epilepsy Fieldwork Service operates across the north east of Scotland and in the Glasgow area, ensuring that care is co-ordinated for those living locally.
Epilepsy is a condition where an individual has recurrent seizures, due to a disturbance in the electrical charges that travel from the brain to the rest of the body
1 in 200 people in the UK have epilepsy.
1 in 20 people will have a single seizure at some time in their life, which may be the result of a head injury, or a lack of oxygen, and may not develop into epilepsy
Epilepsy can have been present since birth, can be caused in later life due to an injury, infection, abnormality in the brain or various other reasons still not fully understood
Epilepsy affects people of both sexes and all ages
75% of people in the UK who have epilepsy are able to control their seizures with medication
The symptoms of epilepsy are characterised by sudden, recurring seizures (sometimes known as fits), originating in electrical activity in the brain. These seizures range from 'absences' (brief lapses of awareness) to 'tonic clonic' or convulsive seizures with loss of consciousness and powerful muscle spasms. Though perceived as a medical condition, the social, emotional and psychological effects of epilepsy can be devastating, leading directly to levels of disadvantage which are severe, long term and difficult to manage.
Despite the low profile epilepsy receives, prevalence rates are very high indeed with 1 child in every 100 experiencing epileptic seizures, making this condition the most common serious neurological condition in the UK today. It is 10 times more prevalent than multiple sclerosis and 100 times more prevalent than motor neurone disease.
In 1990, the cost to the health service for each person with epilepsy was £600 in the year that epilepsy was diagnosed and £200 in subsequent years. However, due to the far-reaching psychological and social consequences, the cost to social services over the same period was five to ten times higher.
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