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Query: UMLS:C0036572 (seizures)
 80,221 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

In this modern age of rapidly advancing medical knowledge and technology there are few conditions as wrapped up in ignorance and prejudice as that known as epilepsy. A large part of the reason for this lies in the concept of the "epileptic person," by which is really meant the epileptic personality. In an attempt to assess behavior and learning in children with seizures, behavior and learning being regarded as opposite sides of the same coin, a study was designed in which totally objective neurological and psychological data was obtained from such a group of children. The evaluation was carried out without any prior knowledge of the nature of the presenting clinical picture, so as to prevent bias from pre-conceived notions. The results show that 70% of the first 200 children showed significant learning defects sufficient to make special educational placement mandatory. Of the remaining 30% some still showed minor learning problems enough to give rise to difficulties in regular classroom situations. Associated with these learning problems were varying behavioral reaction types, varying from the classical hyperactive child with minimal cerebral dysfunction to many environmentally-produced behavior difficulties resulting from faulty school placement due to failure to recognize learning problems. Faculty parental handling due to similar failure to realize the child's limitations also contributed to this. The significance of these findings with respect to the behavior disturbances of the so-called epileptic child will be discussed.
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PMID:Behavior and learning problems in epileptic children. 82 19

Four (possibly five) boys are described with a profound comprehension deficit for acoustic language, leading to severe or complete abolition of expressive speech. One boy had presumed megalencephaly from birth but was of superior intelligence. He had a severe articulation deficit from early childhood, with delayed acquisition of speech. Another boy is thought to have a small angiomatous anomaly in the depth of the left parietal lobe. No brain lesions are known in the other three. Evidence for bilateral brain dysfunction consists of minor motor abnormalities in three boys, oromotor deficits in two boys, and bilaterally synchronous diffuse or independent focal paroxysmal discharges in the EEG of three, possibly four, of the boys. Seizures have occurred in only three boys, and have been easily controlled with anticonvulsants. One boy with a grossly abnormal EEG has had no clinical seizures to date and has not benefited frome one year of anticonvulsant therapy. Two of the boys are brothers, including the boy in whome the diagnosis is questionable since speech was never normal and since he has had neither seizures for an abnormal EEG. The severity of EEG abnormalities did not correlate closely with the course of the language deficit. The relationship of this syndrome to acquired aphasia in children, to Wernicke's aphasia and pure word deafness in adults, and to developmental lagnuage disability with predominantly receptive deficits, is discussed. One child illustrated the close association between writing and phonologic encoding and decoding operations, and two children the preservation of linguistic skills provided the acoustic channel was by-passed and language presented visually. This latter point has been emphasized because of its implications for the remedial education of children with this syndrome.
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PMID:Verbal auditory agnosia in children. 87 Mar 58

Performance on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale and Halstead neuropsychological measures were investigated in two groups of adult subjects with major motor epilepsy of early (0 to 5 yr) and later (17 to 50 yr) onset, and in two groups with early and later onset of brain damage without epilepsy. The two groups with early onset earned poorer scores on most tests than did the two groups with later onset. The findings suggest an adverse effect of cerebral dysfunction of early onset, whether accompanied by major motor seizures or not. Subjects with early onset of major motor seizures scored significantly lower on 9 of 14 measures than subjects in any other group, none of which showed significant intergroup differences in the dependent variables employed. The results support the conclusion that early age of onset of major motor seizures is more apt to result in impairment of mental abilities in adult life than is later onset of seizures or early or late onset of brain damage uncomplicated by epilepsy.
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PMID:The effect of early versus late onset of major motor epilepsy upon cognitive-intellectual performance. 112 99

Posttraumatic epilepsy (PTE) is a known consequence of head trauma. The factors involved in posttraumatic seizures generation and the relationship between acute seizures and posttraumatic epilepsy are not without controversy. This also applies to the evolution of the electroencephalographic characteristics. The study here reported was performed analysing data from patients with posttraumatic epilepsy (N = 205) and data from patients followed-up since trauma and considered as a high risk population for the development of PTE (patients with acute seizures and/or patients with focal lesions--contusion, haematomas or penetrating head injury) (N = 152). Seizure type was associated with age and trauma severity (children, elderly and worst trauma cases present with a higher proportion of partial seizures). Neurological deficit and lesion location were associated with the seizure occurrence. The increased incidence of seizures was found when the most diffused brain dysfunction was combined with neurological deficits. The analysis of sequential EEGs performed at first, at 6th and 12 months post trauma revealed a non-stationary pattern throughout these time periods with EEG focal abnormalities remaining frequent for more than two years after the trauma. Children and old people have a higher proportion of EEG abnormalities with more frequent abnormal generalized activity in children and more frequent abnormal focal EEG activity in the elderly.
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PMID:Posttraumatic epilepsy in civilians: clinical and electroencephalographic studies. 141 46

The topography of CO2 vasoreactivity during hyperventilation in 8 patients with complex partial seizure (CPS) was visualized using the regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) as measured by H(2)15O-PET (positron emission tomography) and compared with that of 10 normal volunteers. In the normal volunteers, the vascular response to CO2 (VrCO2 = delta CBF%/delta PaCO2) in the temporal lobe was 2.46 +/- 0.56 (%/mmHg). In the patients with CPS, VrCO2 in the temporal lobe of the affected side was 2.08 +/- 0.40 (%/mmHg), while VrCO2 on the contralateral side was 2.30 +/- 0.46 (%/mmHg). There was a significant difference in VrCO2 between the affected side of the temporal lobes and the temporal lobes of the normal volunteers. Furthermore, there was a tendency for VrCO2 to be lower in the affected than in the contralateral side of the temporal lobe in patients with CPS. As CO2 is the main regulator of CBF, this impaired vasoreactivity may reflect the brain dysfunction in the seizure focus and adjacent areas.
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PMID:Temporal lobe CO2 vasoreactivity in patients with complex partial seizures. 143 64

Generalized tonic-clonic seizures are the most common type of convulsive disorders in children. They are always a sign of an epileptogenic cerebral dysfunction and present either acutely, predominantly as a single event with detectable origin, or chronically, recurring as an epileptic syndrome. In view of the etiology and classification of convulsions it is important to differentiate between primarily and secondarily generalized seizures. This distinction is first of all based on an exact description of the very beginning and of the course of the seizures, on the EEG findings and on any connection between the seizures and a particular time of day. Primarily generalized tonic-clonic seizures with and without associated petit mal seizures are manifestations of an idiopathic epilepsy and are most probably genetically determined, secondarily generalized seizures on the other hand are often signs of a central nervous lesion or of another symptomatic form of epilepsy. Benign idiopathic partial seizures, however, take the from of secondarily generalized convulsions during the morning sleep. Prolonged tonic-clonic seizures of any origin require vigorous treatment with anticonvulsants, if necessary in an intensive care unit. Recurrent seizures are treated with long-term anticonvulsant medication. The first-line treatment is valproic acid or phenobarbitone (or if necessary, a bromide) in primarily generalized seizures and carbamazepine or phenytoin in secondarily generalized convulsions. The recommended duration of this therapy and the risk of recurrence of seizures vary widely with the underlying etiology and the type of epilepsy.
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PMID:[Grand mal epilepsy in childhood]. 143 12

This is a descriptive study of 50 randomly selected male patients retained in a maximum-security state hospital for mentally disordered offenders. Data regarding the prevalence of several indicators of potential organic brain dysfunction are presented, including: (1) a diagnosis of any organic brain disorder, (2) a history of severe head injury with loss of consciousness, (3) a history of seizure activity, (4) evidence of cognitive impairment, (5) abnormal neurological findings, and (6) other relevant neurodiagnostic or historical findings. Results show that multiple indicators of potential brain dysfunction were present in 64% of the cases. At least one indicator of potential brain dysfunction was present for 84% of the subjects. Subjects with a diagnosis or history suggesting brain dysfunction were significantly more likely to have been indicted for violent criminal charges (p = 0.01). Implications of these findings for clinical treatment and forensic science decision-making are discussed.
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PMID:Estimating the prevalence of organic brain dysfunction in maximum-security forensic psychiatric patients. 162 82

Cytarabine is an effective drug in the treatment of certain hematologic malignancies and its common toxicities are myelosuppression and gastrointestinal disturbance. In the past decade, neurotoxicity has been an increasingly recognized cytarabine effect. Intrathecal (IT) cytarabine may result in myelopathy that is incompletely reversible. Combined IT drug and cranial irradiation may lead to necrotizing leukoencephalopathy. Intravenous (IV) therapy may cause a peripheral neuropathy that varies greatly in its severity. The high IV cytarabine doses now commonly used can cause seizures, cerebral dysfunction, or an acute cerebellar syndrome with an incidence up to 14%. Patient age (greater than 60 years) appears to be the most important risk factor, but drug dose/schedule, cumulative drug dose, renal and hepatic dysfunction, and concomitant use of neurotropic antiemetic agents may also influence the risk of neurotoxicity. A better understanding of the pathophysiology and pharmacology of such cytarabine-induced neuronal injury will allow this drug to be used with greater efficacy and safety.
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PMID:Cytarabine and neurologic toxicity. 172 19

Autism is one of the behaviorally defined developmental disorders of brain function. It has a variety of genetic and nongenetic etiologies, with etiology being unknown in the majority of children. Boys are more frequently affected than girls. Manifest in the preschool years, autism always affects sociability, communication, and the child's repertoire of activities and interests. Autism encompasses children with a broad range of severities and a variety of other signs of brain dysfunction. These include motor signs, notably stereotypies; abnormal responses to a variety of sensory stimuli; and disorders of affect and attention. A significant proportion of autistic children experience epileptic seizures and have abnormal EEGs. Neuroimaging, preferably magnetic resonance imaging, discloses abnormalities of brain development in a minority of autistic persons. The level of intelligence may range from profound mental deficiency to giftedness. The pattern of cognitive skills is likely to be uneven, typically with better nonverbal than verbal skills. In the preschool years, all autistic children have a developmental language disorder. Verbal expression may range from total lack of language to verbosity with echolalia; comprehension and language use are invariably impaired. While there is no specific pharmacologic agent to mitigate the fundamental disorder, children may benefit from drugs to treat specific symptoms such as attention disorder and seizures. Although autistic behaviors are the consequence of a static disorder of brain function, their character changes with maturation and appropriate intervention. Communication skills and sociability remain deficient but improve in all but the most severely affected children. Outcome is a function of both innate cognitive competence and the effectiveness of early intervention focused on the development of appropriate social skills and meaningful communication. Intelligent autistic adults may be educable, employable, and able to live independently, while more severely handicapped ones require a lifelong protected environment.
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PMID:Autistic children: diagnosis and clinical features. 170 91

Severe persistent neuropsychological disorders sometimes develop in the course of a focal epilepsy of unknown origin in previously normal children. Very frequent bilateral focal or generalized discharges are often noted on the sleep EEG records of these patients with no evidence of clinical seizures. The relation between these paroxysms and the observed deterioration remains unclear. We report a child with a partial complex epilepsy and severe disturbances of language, cognition, and behavior acquired in the early years of development who was followed for 15 years. A correlation between the evolution of the striking EEG abnormalities during sleep and the neuropsychological disorders could be established retrospectively. The observed sequence of onset and recovery of the aphasia, the dementia, and the "psychotic" behavior makes a direct causal relation between the deficits quite unlikely. Rather it suggests an association of independent symptoms with a specific language disorder becoming manifest in the course of the evolution. This child shows many of the main characteristics of the syndromes of "acquired aphasia with convulsive disorder" (Landau-Kleffner syndrome) and "epilepsy with continuous spike waves during sleep." Both syndromes describe probably different facets of a similar underlying, still unexplained cerebral dysfunction.
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PMID:Acquired aphasia, dementia, and behavior disorder with epilepsy and continuous spike and waves during sleep in a child. 171 72


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