It’s always tragic when someone passes away, but it’s extremely shocking if it happens unannounced and that too at a very young age.
Cameron Boyce, the kid we grew to love for delivering extremely entertaining performances of Disney Channel, breathed his last on the 6th of July this year at the tender age of 20, with absolutely no indication before his death that he was progressing towards it.
Boyce fans were obviously extremely shocked by the news, and social media flooded with messages for the deceased star.
Many actors who had worked with Boyce in the past also shared their tributes for the actor. But, of course, everyone had a lot of questions as well, all of which pertained to the cause of his death.
A Seizure
The most immediate cause of Boyce’s death was a seizure, which he had in connection to another medical condition called epilepsy that he was already getting treated by medical professionals.
The questions were finally put to rest when the report by the coroner was released, which also confirmed the initial diagnosis that indeed the death had been caused by epilepsy.
For those of you who are not aware of epilepsy, it is basically a medical condition of a chronic nature that causes a disorder in the brain, thereby creating many health problems including seizure.
The condition is treatable but certainly not the most-deadly one out there as many people that suffer from this condition go on to live a very long and fulfilling life.
However, there is still a risk that it may cause the patient to die, most probably from a complication arising from the onset of a seizure at an unfortunate time such a while driving a car as that can cause a life-threatening accident. Or, there is also another condition that is little known however can be very dangerous, and it’s called the Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy, or SUDEP.
Understanding Epilepsy
While, in most cases, Epilepsy is a condition that can be managed very successfully, there are some cases where the seizures may not always be controllable, causing an increased risk to the patient’s life.
It is also a very common condition, especially in the US, as around 3.4 million people are estimated to be living with this condition in the country.
But the important fact to understand here, if you wish to figure out exactly what happened to Cameron Boyce, is that epilepsy does not have the same impact on all patients, rather everyone faces different symptoms based upon different circumstances such as the age when the first seizure happened, or the effectiveness of medication in each particular case.
However, if the first seizure happens at a very young age, then there is a high chance that the sufferer would face noticeable cognitive impairments growing up.
And some patients suffer from SUDEP, which is a phenomenon that is not understood very well even today.
More research is needed on how it can be prevented. For now, all we know is that SUDEP happens most commonly when the patient is sleeping, as the seizure disrupts breathing or the rhythm of the heart.