I don't get it...

[Master Of Deceit]

I've noted recently many ads that promote awareness of epilepsy. One of them mentioned epilepsy-related discrimination. That confuses me. I don't understand why people with epilepsy would be discriminated against. Sure, they have a physical illness that makes them have seizures but apart from that there's nothing wrong with them. I don't get it.

[Zeitgeist]

Depending on seriousness of the condition, people with epilepsy also can't do all jobs a healthy person can do. (like working varying shifts, for example) Some are not allowed to drive a car (think how much fun it'd be to have a seizure while driving ). Some medications can have severe side effects.

Those are factors that may not look too appealing to potential employers, for example. But in general as well, a lot of people will make jokes about seizures, I suppose, so maybe that's meant by discrimination as well.

Epilepsy isn't just "twitch on the floor for a minute once a month and otherwise I'm fine". Just saying. :P

[Hannah Montana]

Adding to the above argument (which I totally agree with). Sometimes the effects of having epilepsy may impact on how someone is treated at work.

For example, a good friend that I worked with had epilepsy. My manager hired her with the knowledge that she had epilepsy, however after about a few months my friend was given the chance to have an operation which would effectively stop (or severly reduce) the number of seziures that she would have.

She obviously took up the opportunity, which resulted in her having to spend a considerable amount of time off work. My manager did not seem to appreciate this and when my friend returned, she found that she had been demoted due to the lack of time that she had spent in work.

Its a horrible story but these kind of things happen all the time.

[Heidi Tiger]

Also with certain kinds of epilepsy it can really alter your behavior and not all kind of seizure are of the shake on the floor type. When someone is coming round from a seizure they can behave really oddly and maybe they get discriminated against because of that.

Also in the past epilepsy was thought to be a psychiatric disorder and epileptics were locked up in asylums, so maybe there still is some discrimination because of that.

[ThinkingofRecovery]

I worked in a department where one of the other lawyers was epileptic and the few weeks leading up to a seizure/fit included a marked drop in her quality of work and judgment, which she wasn't aware of. This required a greater deal of supervision to ensure that she was ok and her work was also.

[Master Of Deceit]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeitgeist

Those are factors that may not look too appealing to potential employers, for example.

I can get how that sucks, but it's not really discrimination, is it? There are just things they can't do.

[OutOfTheWoods11]

The things is, a judgement that someone is incapable of performing a task can be labelled as discriminatory by some even though there might be perfectly good reasons behind it.

[Jelly Fairy]

Some people who suffer 'absence seizures' rather than the more commonly recognised 'tonic clonic' seizures are often descriminated against. Because people may not realise they have epilepsy, they can often just be accoused of daydreaming or not paying attention.

[Zeitgeist]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Master Of Deceit

I can get how that sucks, but it's not really discrimination, is it? There are just things they can't do.

Well, the others explained it better than I did :)

And, although I'm sure it's been mentioned already - I can imagine a lot of employers seeing the label of epilepsy and assuming that the person in question will be incapable of doing certain tasks when that might not be the case. (Symptoms differ after all.)

To be fair, I have no idea if such a campaign against discrimination would think that far. I doubt it.

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Edit, to elaborate and because I'm bored. It's not just job life, really. A good friend of mine does suffer from epilepsy and I never imagined it could affect so many areas of life. Ya know how in clubs they tend to go overboard with lights? Have fun scraping the epileptics off the floor. But there are seriously no places to go to at night that don't do that and yet allow for dancing. Just one example of many I could think of ;)