FORT WORTH (1080 KRLD) - A Fort Worth high school used the football team's Senior Night to raise awareness of a common disorder.
Cheerleaders at Paschal High School distributed pamphlets to fans attending Thursday night's game at Farrington Field.
"(As many as) 50,000 students in Texas are estimated to have epilepsy," says epileptologist Dr. Scott Perry, the head of neurosciences at Cook Children's Medical Center. "As much as 3.4 million Americans have epilepsy; 150,000 new cases of epilepsy per year."
Dr. Scott Perry says it's important for everyone to be seizure aware.
"Know what a seizure looks like, know how to address a seizure when it happens, (and) understand how to do seizure first aid," says Dr. Perry.
Perry says the basic steps in treating someone having an epileptic seizure are summarized as stay-safe-side.
"Stay with the person, put them on their side, (and) put them in a safe place," says Perry. "Those three things you want to do."
Perry says epilepsy is more common than what people may think.
"When I think about the fact that one in 26 people has epilepsy, that means a lot of those people in the stands have epilepsy," Perry says. "And I personally take care of a lot of children that are in high school that I know have epilepsy."
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