According to an epilepsy research in North America, epilepsy can cause sudden death. 8 to 17% of people with epilepsy have sudden death and people with epilepsy have very high mortality rate compared to people with or without other conditions. to say that someone with epilepsy has died in SUDEP or Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy, the US Food and Drugs Administration and Burroughs-Wellcome developed a criteria that is now used in most SUDEP studies.  The criteria that they developed should be used in order to standardize the definition of SUDEP as not anyone can say that a person with epilepsy just died suddenly.