[3]: 458 Later in ~1050 B.C., the Babylonian scholars developed the first seizure classification, inscribing their medical knowledge in the stone tablets called Sakikku or in English "All Diseases.
[1]: 523 A seizure is a paroxysmal episode of symptoms or altered behavior arising from abnormal excessive or synchronous brain neuronal activity.
[1] Atonic seizures are a brief 0.5-2 second lapses in muscle tone commonly leading to a fall.
[6] Epileptic spasm seizures are brief 1-2 second proximal limb and truncal flexion or extension movements, often repeated.
[6] Tonic seizures are abrupt increases in muscle tone greater than 2 seconds in duration.
[6] Myoclonic, atonic, tonic, and myoclonic-atonic seizures may cause abrupt falls, called drop attacks, similar to cataplexy.
A non-motor seizure may begin with a sensory, cognitive, autonomic, or emotional symptom, behavioral arrest of activity, or impaired awareness with minor motor activity as the initial predominant seizure feature.
[1] Sensory seizures occur with somatosensory, olfactory, visual, gustatory, vestibular, or thermal sensations.
[9] Autonomic seizures occur with palpitations, heart rate changes, nausea, vomiting, piloerection, lacrimation, pupil size changes or urge to urinate or defecate.
[9] Emotional seizures occur with fear, anxiety, laughing, crying, pleasure, or anger sensations.
[6] Atypical absence seizures occur with a less sudden impairment in awareness, often accompanied by a gradual head, limb, or truncal slumping.
[1]: 525 During the typical 1 minute seizure, a person experiences a familiar (déjà vu) sensation, followed by picking and fumbling hand movements.
Appending a descriptor, this is a focal impaired awareness cognitive seizure with déjà vu followed by hand automatisms.
Appending a descriptor, this is a typical absence seizure with 3 per second eye fluttering movements.
"[12] Epilepsia partialis continua is a rare type of focal motor seizure, commonly involving the hands or face, which recurs with intervals of seconds or minutes, lasting for extended periods of days or years.