Photo Gallery
Our photo gallery helps you have a feel of Epilepsy in Sierra Leone and what we do.
Adverse Effects
People suffering from epilepsy in Sierra Leone face many challenging problems. The most tragic are burns often seen in women who usually cook in open fires and sustain severe burns if attacks occurs while cooking. In our sensitization activities we emphasize the importance of women with epilepsy avoid cooking in open fire of even cooking at all but the realities are such that this cannot be avoided in most cases. We then encourage them to place the fire at a height so if they fall they would not fall...
Causes of Epilepsy
In Sierra Leone, epilepsy starts at an early age with the mean age of onset being 12 years. Many of the cases are due to birth injuries, infections in childhood particularly cerebral malaria and meningitis, febrile convulsions and trauma. As a result of the Civil war in Sierra Leone which ended in 1992, we see many cases of head injuries resulting from gun shots, shrapnel damage and machete assaults. Road traffic accidents are also common, many associated with traumatic brain injuries. Middle aged and older patients presenting with epilepsy...
LOVE Institute
Many people living with epilepsy in Sierra Leone have been excluded from school or college and thus, even when their epilepsy is being controlled by medication, find it difficult to get work. Unemployment, coupled with the medical costs associated with having a chronic disease such as epilepsy, place a great financial burden on patients and their families. It is against this background that the Epilepsy Association of Sierra Leone established a vocational skills training centre called the Lords Opportunity for Victory over Epilepsy (LOVE) Institute as part of its...
Traditional Beliefs
In Sierra Leone, the causes of epilepsy are misunderstood to be demonic, witchcraft or atonement for sins committed by one’s forefathers; it is further believed that people are possessed by supernatural forces which rendered them unable to control their bodily functions and that the condition is transferable through bodily contact of sputum that comes out of a person’s mouth during seizures. Over half of the Sierra Leonean population have the belief that Epilepsy is due to witchcraft or demons or both and two-third have tried traditional healing while a...
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