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Epilepsy is a disorder in which nerve cell activity in the brain is disturbed, causing unprovoked seizures. This is actually the fourth most common neurological disorder in the world yet there are still many . A disorder of such depth has lingering issues surrounding it such as the co-morbidities of this disorder. The list of co-morbidities is rather long and may include, but are not only limited to, depression, anxiety, dementia, migraine, heart disease, peptic ulcers, and arthritis. Additionally, individuals with epilepsy also often struggle with swallowing and feeding dysfunctions. In fact, one of the primary neurologic conditions associated with focal epilepsy (seizures which affect initially only one hemisphere of the brain) is dysphagia. Therefore, individuals with epilepsy often seek aid from speech-language pathologist (SLPs). Consequently, SLPs must strive to (a) respect the wishes of their clients or their surrogate decision makers (e.g., desire for oral feeding/desire for tube feeding); (b) do good or do the “right thing” (e.g., provide for appropriate intake of nutrition); (c) prevent harm (e.g., reduce negative, even life-threatening, consequences associated with eating/feeding); and (d) do this by fairly allocating resources, both human and financial (Huffman & Owre, 2008). These can be nerve-wracking times for the family members of the individual. Moreover, with such an unpredictable disorder, this can often isolate individuals to the comfort of their home. Developmental disabilities are unique and may be approach very differently depending on the diagnosed and their family.
