Partial seizures (also called focal seizures) affect just one part of your brain. Partial seizures can interfere with your awareness and your ability to communicate; they can also make your body move in ways that you can't control.

Partial seizures are the most common type of seizure. A partial seizure can stimulate your emotions and your senses, make your body move, interfere with your perceptions, generate perceptions, and produce vivid, extended hallucinations that you can see or hear.

Sometimes a partial seizure will trigger a generalized seizure. In medical language, this is called a partial seizure secondarily generalized.