Video game epilepsy concerns parent

(NBC) - Like most nine year-old boys, Brandon Sweeney likes sports, and video games. In fact, Brandon spent a good part of summer break engrossed in his favorite video games.

"And as time went by, we noticed his head used to kind of jerk with his both shoulders and that's when we started getting worried," Alma Sweeney, his mother, said.

Brandon was diagnosed with juvenile myoclonic epilepsy.

"For someone who has been so healthy all his life and then be diagnosed with epilepsy is like, 'what happened? Where did this come from?'," Alma Sweeney said.

Doctor Rachel Kuperman, a Pediatric Neurologist at Oakland Children's Hospital says epileptic seizures, especially in children, can be triggered by video games.

"The type of seizures that we tend to see with video games, it tends to be jerking movements or just kind of staring off, unresponsive," Dr. Kuperman said.

In particular games with flashing lights, especially red and blue and repeated patterns like in the popular game guitar hero.

"It's almost part of the urban mythology that it can happen. And we do see it, not that frequently, but we do see it," Dr. Kuperman said.

But the chances are rare and only a child has a genetic predisposition to seizures, something Alma Sweeney didn't know, despite a warning on each and every game.

"You're not going to sit there and read every single sentence. But now that he has been diagnosed, now I see it," Alma Sweeney said.

That's why the video games have been shelved.

"I play football outside with my friends but on Saturday I play soccer," Brandon Sweeney said.