| idiopathic epilepsy | An epilepsy without evident cause; term often used to describe the genetic epilepsies. Synonym: generalised tonic-clonic seizure. (05 Mar 2000) |
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| intractable epilepsy | Epilepsy not adequately controlled by medication. Synonym: pharmacoresistent epilepsy. (05 Mar 2000) |
| occipital lobe epilepsy | A localization-related epilepsy where seizures originate from the occipital lobe. Symptoms commonly include visual abnormalities during seizures. (05 Mar 2000) |
| temporal lobe epilepsy | Seizures with elaborate and multiple sensory, motor, and/or psychic components. A common feature is the clouding of consciousness and amnesia for the event. Some clinical manifestations may include more complex behaviours like burst of anger, emotional outbursts, fear or automatisms. The EEG often reveals spike discharges in the temporal lobe during sleep. (27 Sep 1997) |
| early posttraumatic epilepsy | Seizures beginning within one week after severe head injury. (05 Mar 2000) |
| eating epilepsy | Epileptic, often generalised, seizures provoked by eating; a type of reflex epilepsy. (05 Mar 2000) |
| tonic epilepsy | An attack in which the body is rigid. (05 Mar 2000) |
| tornado epilepsy | A type of focal epilepsy or partial seizure with an aura of severe vertigo and a feeling of being drawn up into space. (05 Mar 2000) |
| epilepsy | <disease, neurology> The paroxysmal transient disturbances of brain function that may be manifested as episodic impairment or loss of consciousness, abnormal motor phenomena, psychic or sensory disturbances or perturbation of the autonomic nervous system. Symptoms are due to paroxysmal disturbance of the electrical activity of the brain. On the basis of origin, epilepsy is idiopathic (cryptogenic, essential, genetic) or symptomatic (acquired, organic). On the basis of clinical and electroencephalographic phenomenon, four subdivisions are recognised: 1. Grand mal epilepsy (major epilepsy, haut mal epilepsy) subgroups: generalised, focal (localised), jacksonian (rolandic) 2. Petit mal epilepsy 3. Psychomotor epilepsy (temporal lobe epilepsy, psychic, psychic equivalent or variant) subgroups: psychomotor proper (tonic with adversive or torsion movements or masticatory phenomena), automatic (with amnesia) and sensory (hallucinations or dream states or d굁. Vu) 4. Autonomic epilepsy (diencephalic), with flushing, pallor, tachycardia, hypertension, perspiration or other visceral symptoms. Synonym: epilepsia. Origin: Gr. Epilepsia = seizure (14 May 1997) |
| epilepsy, absence | Epileptic seizures that consist of a sudden cessation of ongoing conscious activity without convulsive muscular activity or loss of postural control. These seizures may be so brief as to be inapparent, lasting seconds and occasionally several minutes. Absence seizures usually begin in otherwise neurologically normal children and rarely appear for the first time in adults. The seizures may occur hundreds of times per day and go on for weeks or months before it is recognised that a child is having seizures. (12 Dec 1998) |
| epilepsy, complex partial | Epileptic seizures that are episodic changes in behaviour in which an individual loses conscious contact with the environment. The onset of such seizures involves any of a variety of auras: deja-vu, an unusual smell, a sudden intense emotional feeling, a sensory illusion such as micropsia (objects growing smaller) or macropsia (objects growing larger), or other sensory hallucination. There may be a cessation of activity with some minor motor activity such as lip smacking, walking aimlessly, or other automatisms. The seizures may also be accompanied by the unconscious performance of highly skilled activities such as driving a car. When the seizure ends, the individual is amnesic for events that took place during the seizure and may take minutes or hours to recover fully to consciousness. (12 Dec 1998) |
| epilepsy, frontal lobe | Epileptic seizures arising from the frontal lobe characterised by simple partial, complex partial, secondary generalised seizures, or combinations of these. The seizures, which are short in duration, may occur several times a day, mostly during sleep. Affected individuals usually have prominent motor manifestations which are tonic or postural, complex gestational automatisms at the onset, and fall to the ground when the discharge is bilateral. Status epilepticus is a frequent complication. (12 Dec 1998) |
| epilepsy, generalised | Epileptic seizures in which the first clinical changes indicate initial involvement of both hemispheres of the brain, as opposed to epileptic seizures involving a particular focal point of the brain (epilepsy, partial). Generalised seizures can be convulsive or non-convulsive. Consciousness may be impaired and this impairment may be the initial manifestation of the seizure. Motor manifestations, if present, are also bilateral. (12 Dec 1998) |
| epilepsy, myoclonic | A progressive encephalopathy characterised by myoclonic jerks (single or repetitive muscle contractions involving one body part or the entire body), mental retardation, and ataxia. The disease, an autosomal recessive form of epilepsy, occurs usually at puberty. The most significant pathological findings are lafora's inclusion bodies, which contain mucopolysaccharides. (12 Dec 1998) |
| epilepsy, partial | Epileptic seizures that originate at a specific location or focal point in the cortex of the brain and either remain localised or may generalise. These seizures occur without the loss of consciousness of the individual. The specific clinical symptoms depend on the area of the cortex involved. (12 Dec 1998) |