Introduction: Tracing the recent history of the ‘falling sickness’

We were very honoured and excited to be approached to edit this special edition of Seizure, which marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of the UK patient organisation, Epilepsy Action (EA, formerly The British Epilepsy Association). We have both been involved with the work of EA over what is now a considerable period of time – as research funding recipients, research collaborators, members of the Council of Management and Research Committee, members of the Research Advisory Group, supporters and – we like to think – as friends. What better way, we agreed, to celebrate EA's history and achievements, than to edit such a special edition – especially given that Seizure was founded by EA and remains its official academic journal. So, we want to start by thanking Markus Reuber and Simon Wigglesworth for proposing us as editors. We are very glad we said yes to the request – working with all our contributors and reading/editing their excellent and thought-provoking contributions has been one of the most rewarding pieces of work we have ever done and we are very proud of the end product. We hope readers will enjoy it as much as we have. The aim of this Special Edition was to highlight changes in the way epilepsy has been thought about and dealt with over the 60 years of EA's existence and to speculate a little on what the next 60 years holds for the clinical and social management of epilepsy. We also wanted to highlight what has changed and what still needs to change for people with epilepsy, not just in the UK but worldwide. So – this is not a systematic 'account' of epilepsy, wherein we cover all the epidemiological, neurobiological, clinical, psychiatric/ psychological and social bases – rather we wanted the content to tune with EA's stated aims to: Raise and maintain awareness about epilepsy. Educate people about the facts about epilepsy and improve their understanding of the condition. Bring about permanent change for the social and medical benefit of people with epilepsy. Provide advice and information about epilepsy. Promote all types of research into epilepsy and undertake social and medical research into epilepsy. Ensure that epilepsy is fully understood and the needs of people with epilepsy are supported. Epilepsy Action has always been about people with epilepsy; so from the beginning, we wanted this special edition to contain articles from people with epilepsy themselves, …