It consists of just two small sensors and a little white box, but for Craig O'Neill's family his new epilepsy alarm means a chance of a normal life.

The family, from Stevenston in Ayrshire, recently became the 2000th to benefit from a potentially life-saving epilepsy alarm from the Muir Maxwell Trust (MMT).

The Scottish children's epilepsy charity reached the important milestone last month.

Distribution of these £728 alarms is just one front of the charity's fight to raise awareness, knowledge and support for children affected by the damaging neurological disorder.

Craig's mum Trisha Scobie received the alarm within months of being referred to MMT by a dedicated epilepsy nurse at Crosshouse Hospital in Kilmarnock.

Craig, aged 13, normally has epileptic seizures when he's sleeping. They can last anything between 20 seconds to a couple of minutes.

The alarm, with motion sensors underneath the mattress, means his family are immediately alerted to a seizure.

"It went off the first night we used it. It has gone off a couple of times," says single mum Trisha, who relies heavily on the support of her daughters Emma, 20, and Lauren, 18, both students.

"Craig just wakes up and he's just not right. He's dizzy and slurry."

The new alarm offers the family peace of mind and the chance of a manageable routine.

Previously, Trisha had to be awake when Craig was awake, and slept restlessly when he slept due to the fear that he would take a seizure and she wouldn't be there.

She was unable to work for almost three years as Craig couldn't fall asleep until the early hours of the morning – and he was up again for school at 7.30am.

"Just every now and again it would really get to you," says Trisha, who now works in a local chip shop, close enough to return home if anything goes wrong.

The broken sleep pattern is something that MMT founder Ann Maxwell can identify with.

Her son Muir, 14, has a severe form of epilepsy called Dravet Syndrome.

"Without intervention during a seizure, there is a risk of death," says mum-of-three Ann, who was a finalist in the Evening Times' Scotswoman of the Year competition in 2010.

"Parents whose children are at risk of night-time seizures often don't sleep but keep a vigil by the child's bedside throughout the night."

Craig's family were living in Newcastle when they first began to suspect that all wasn't well with the youngster.

By the age of four, he still was still wetting the bed at night.

Doctors sent him for EEG and ECG scans, after which epilepsy was diagnosed.

His attacks can happen several times a week, but Trisha said they're less frequent since his medication was increased.

He attends Ayrshire Central Hospital in Irvine to monitor his epilepsy, and is about to start attending an epilepsy clinic at Crosshouse Hospital in Kilmarnock.

The youngster also suffers from asthma, arthritis and has a heart murmur, so is a regular visitor to the sick kids' hospital at Yorkhill.

The doctors don't yet know if his epilepsy has caused any long-term damage.

"I think we're going to have to wait and see what happens," says Trisha.

"Every now and again Craig refuses to take his tablets and he lashes out. We think it's part of the epilepsy.

"My older daughter ended up in hospital with him at one point. He had thrown something at her.

"He doesn't realise he's doing it sometimes."

Craig is a pupil at St Matthew's Academy in Saltcoats, where he uses a laptop computer to do his work since his arthritis impairs his handwriting.

He goes karate classes twice a week as well as weekly physiotherapy sessions at the nearby Auchenharvie gym.

"He is a lovely wee boy," says Trisha. "To look at him sometimes you wouldn't think there was anything wrong with him at all.

"You can tell when he's not well. He doesn't complain about pain. He doesn't complain about anything, but you can tell."

It was through sheer exasperation at the lack of support for their son that Ann and Jonny Maxwell set up the Muir Maxwell Trust in 2003.

The Musselburgh-based charity, whose supporters include Joan Collins, Nicola Benedetti, Natasha Kaplinsky and Colin Montgomery, exists to fund research and provide support to the 30,000 families affected by uncontrolled epilepsy in the UK.

Ann has helped raise more than £5 million for the charity – even while recuperating from a life-threatening brain tumour.

MMT receives up to 80 requests a month for epilepsy alarms.

It doesn't advertise – the demand comes purely through word-of-mouth.

Ann says: "The 2000th alarm is highly significant because we have now reached out to 2000 families struggling to cope with their child's difficult epilepsy.

"We are now operating a waiting list, capped at 200 families and, therefore, demand is probably about to overwhelm us.

"The cost of the alarms has also increased recently, which requires us to work even harder at fundraising."

The charity funded a pioneering DNA sequencing service at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children at Yorkhill to research genetic causes of epilepsy, which tested samples from all over Scotland.

This award-winning service is now fully funded by the NHS.