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Epilepsy is a brain disorder in which clusters of nerve cells, or neurons, in the brain sometimes signal abnormally. Neurons normally generate electrochemical impulses that act on other neurons, glands, and muscles to produce human thoughts, feelings, and actions. In epilepsy, the normal pattern of neuronal activity becomes disturbed, causing strange sensations, emotions, and behavior, or sometimes convulsions , muscle spasms, and loss of consciousness. During a seizure, neurons may fire as many as 500 times a second, much faster than normal. In some people, this happens only occasionally; for others, it may happen up to hundreds of times a day. More than 2 million people in the United States -- about 1 in 100 -- have experienced an unprovoked seizure or been diagnosed with epilepsy. For about 80 percent of those diagnosed with epilepsy, seizures can be controlled with modern medicines and surgical techniques. However, about 25 to 30 percent of people with epilepsy will continue to experience seizures even with the best available treatment. Doctors call this situation intractable epilepsy. Having a seizure does not necessarily mean that a person has epilepsy. Only when a person has had two or more seizures is he or she considered to have epilepsy. the project includes making of a wristband which could alert the patient of an epilepsy attack, around 2-3 minutes before it actually occurs. this will be done by placing an alarm in the wristband which will ring as soon as it recieves a signal from a biochip which could be planted in patient's brain through a surgery, the chip must have a strong reciever to immediately notice abnormality in neuron signalling. then it should transmit this to a microcontroller chip placed in wristband and programmed in such a way that if it recieves a signal at one of its input ports, the it should ring the alarm, connected at one of its output ports. although, all i have written is very vague but i am sure this is possible, all i need is proper guidance.

  

dear friend,
actually this is not a working project at all... its just a hypothetical idea..im not sure whether this thing is feasible at all... even my bro is suffering frm epilepsy n dats d reason y i thought of doing this project... but i need proper guidance to do it and since i kudnt get any such guidance, i hav dropped dis idea for d time being.
regards,
shivani :)

  

Dear Shivani,

The idea you have proposed is not practical in India atleast for a few yrs.

The chip which should be implanted, should be extremely small. Research is ongoing for bio-nano devices such as these in Europe and US. They are as such not readily available in the market. India does not have a solid reseach facility for such nano-devices. Furthermor, even if it came out in the market it would be expensive for common people, not to mention the mentality of our people towards inserting a chip in the brain.

I suggest a different method. You can use a head band. I am not  sure as to which part of the brain is the centre for epilepsy. But if some how you can conjure a way to detect the sudden surge in the nerves you can actually eliminate the wrist band itself.

Now since the surrounding have EM signals which are/ maybe stronger that this pulse, you need either need a BPF and Amp circuit or a resonant circuit that amplifies when the pulse is detected.

Hope it helps,

B