The internet and photosensitie epilepsy
Leading epilepsy charity, The National Society for Epilepsy (NSE), warns that people with photosensitive epilepsy to exercise caution when using the internet. With download speeds getting faster, companies are increasingly using more and more sophisticated ways of advertising their products, such as flashing images, which may lead to those with photosensitive epilepsy to have a seizure. Online users, sensitive to images should change browser settings :-
*Internet Explorer: Go to Tools: Internet Options, choose Advanced, scroll to Multimedia, deselect Play animations in web pages.
*Firefox: Go to about:config and set image.animation_mode to none.
* Opera: Press F12 and deselect Enable GIF animation.
Around one in 131 people has epilepsy and, of these people, up to 5% have photosensitive epilepsy, when seizures are triggered by certain frequencies of flashing lights or contrasting light and dark patterns such as stripes or checks.
Photosensitivity is more common in children and young people and is less commonly diagnosed after the age of 20.
Common triggers for people with photosensitive epilepsy include:
* television, video games, or computer graphics - images on the screen
* a television or screen that flickers slowly - the flicker rate of the screen itself
* strobe lights
* sunlight coming through a line of trees
* sunlight on water
* looking out of the window on a train
* looking at a moving escalator.
NSE would encourage organisations to use sensible caution and publish warnings when flashing images may be used on their sites or where possible encourage web users to change their browser settings in order to block flashing images that may cause seizures.
Web: http://www.epilepsynse.org.uk