As of Tuesday, Apr. 29, current USC vice-presidents Thomas Chen and Carys Hsiung have already gotten practice introducing a guest speaker. Equipped with hours of information to share but granted limited time, representative from the Epilepsy Foundation of Minnesota (EFMN) Erik Williams shared the “nuts and bolts” of EFMN’s Seizure Smart training.

Following student announcements, the presentation began with a dialogue between the speaker and the audience. Students and faculty were asked for their participation in a quick true or false knowledge check, the request being: stand if you believe the following statement is true and stay seated if you think it’s false.

In just a few minutes, the audience learned that no, one should not put anything in the mouth of someone seizing, yes, seizures have a low risk of death, and no, seizures are not a mental illness.

Gallery • 6 Photos

Lina Abid

START. Representative Erik Williams from the Epilepsy Foundation of Minnesota introduces the main points of the presentation. He briefed the mission of EFMN, which aims to empower those with epilepsy and educate those around them.

Many of these statements had audience consensus on the true or false answer, but a few had the crowd in Huss significantly divided. Any of these gaps in knowledge were addressed during the presentation.

Ninth-grader August Kidder found the information useful. “I think it was good to learn about epilepsy and what to do if somebody has a seizure … My grandmother had a seizure at some point, and I just feel like it’s nice to know,” he said.

The presentation covered two main categories of seizures: focused and general. Focused seizures refer to a seizure that only targets one part of the brain, while general seizures affect the entire brain.

There were a few videos of seizures shown as visual examples of these different categories. It was emphasized that seizures always look different depending on the type and the person they are affecting. A memorable example was absence seizures, which, being observed, could go unnoticed or be passed off as tiredness, zoning out, or otherwise.

Ninth-grader Mae LaChance had already had experience with seizures coming into the assembly. “Our family friend has epilepsy, so I’ve learned to recognize them … [but] I learned more about the different kinds of epilepsy,” she said.

Once having provided the base-level information, the EFMN representative went over how to act and what steps to take in a situation where someone is having a seizure.

The first step to being prepared to effectively help the person is a calm demeanor. More technically, he suggested monitoring the duration of the seizure. In terms of interacting with the person, whether it be family, friend, or stranger, the advice was to make sure not to restrict them physically, the exception being gently guiding them out of harm’s way.

This advice was especially relevant for sophomore Anneli Wilson. “I have three friends with epilepsy, and I didn’t know how to help them before, but now I do,” they said.

For an assembly that began and ended with announcements, there was a significant amount of information shared, effectively reaching the audience. For more information about epilepsy and how to navigate seizures, consult the Epilepsy Foundation of Minnesota website.