Ayurvedic Principles for the Treatment of Epilepsy

Ayurveda is a Sanskrit word, derived from two roots: ayur, which means life, and veda, knowledge. It deals elaborately with measures for healthful living during the entire span of life and its various phases. Besides, dealing with principles for maintenance of health, it has also developed a wide range of therapeutic measures to combat illness. These principles of positive health and therapeutic measures relate to physical, mental, social and spiritual welfare of human beings. Thus Ayurveda becomes one of the oldest systems of health care dealing with both the preventive and curative aspects of life in a comprehensive way.

In the Ayurvedic system the term apasmara is used for epilepsy. Treatment of epilepsy with herbal drugs as adjuvant seems to be more beneficial and is gaining more popularity due to their limited or nonexistent side effects. Herbal drugs are acting at the target site, having the same mechanism of action as that of synthetic drugs. There are number of drugs being used in the traditional medicine for treatment of epilepsy and presently many of these drugs are being scientifically explored to ascertain their anticonvulsant activity.