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Chapter 20 of the book "Epilepsy and Intensive Care Monitoring: Principles and Practice," is presented. The chapter discusses the prevalence and detection of nonconvulsive status epilepticus (NCSE) in the intensive care unit (ICU). It informs that the identification of the NCSE is comparatively harder than the recognition of generalized convulsive seizures because the NCSE does not not show the symptoms of behavioral change.

Chapter 1 of the book "Nonconvulsive Status Epilepticus," is presented. The chapter explores the history of nonconvulsive status epilepticus. Greek physician Hippocrates recognized that seizures and epilepsy are brain diseases that affect the speech, hand movements and lungs. Another Greek physician Galen described seizures as idiopathic and proposed that the condition is induced by a dyscrasia of the brain humors due to cold.

An encyclopedia entry for "West syndrome" is presented. It refers to an age-dependent epilepsy of infancy and early childhood with a triad of infantile spasms, mental retardation and hypsarrhythmia. It describes the clinical semiology of the disease and the manifestations shown by continuous videopolygraphic recording. The differential diagnosis of the disease is also discussed.

An encyclopedia entry for "temporal lobe seizures/epilepsy" is presented. It refers to the most common localization-related epilepsy in humans. Partial and complex partial seizures are often associated with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Mesial TLE usually occurs during early childhood. A childhood history of complex fibrile seizures, as well as status epilepticus may act as the substrate for mesial temporal sclerosis (MTS). Particular focus is also given to the semiology of TLE.

An encyclopedia entry for "status epilepticus" (SE) is presented. It refers to a common and life-threatening neurologic emergency that presents prolonged seizures. It notes that the most common type of Se is generalized convulsive SE (GCSE). In the U.S., 42,000 deaths are caused by SE while events total to 195,000.

An encyclopedia entry for "Neonatal Seizures" is presented. It offers clinical information on neonatal seizures, which occur during the first four weeks of life. Neonatal seizures include clonic seizures, myoclonic and tonic seizures. It may also manifest with eye movements, poorly coordinated limb movements and apneic episodes. Its clinical management may include supportive child care, and judicious utilization of antiepileptic drugs (AED).

An encyclopedia entry for "memory" is presented. One of the most common complaints of people with epilepsy is disturbances of memory. Memory dysfunction is usually described as episodic, semantic, declarative and procedural in the field of neuropsychology. These areas control memory function such as data acquisition, retention and retrieval of recent memories.

An encyclopedia entry for "Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome" is presented. It refers to one of the encephalopathic generalized epilepsies with characteristic electroencephalograph (EEG) abnormalities. Lennox syndrome is another name for the Lennox-Gastaut syndrome (LGS). LGS symptoms include tonic seizures, interictal EEG abnormalities and cognitive dysfunction. Particular focus is given to the incidence of LGS, along with predisposing factors for LGS. The condition has a poor overall prognosis.

An encyclopedia entry for the "classification of seizures and epilepsies" is presented. Several classification systems for seizures and epileptic syndromes have been proposed by the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE). The advantages of the diagnostic syndrome-oriented five-dimensional and patient-oriented classification systems are cited. The symptoms of different types of seizures and epilepsies are also outlined.

An encyclopedia entry for "antiepileptic drugs (AEDS)" is presented. It highlights the availability of treatment options for epilepsy after 1993 due to the emergence of new-generation AEDS for patients with seizures. Variations in the AED of choice are based on experience, personal preference, desire to avoid particular side effects, as well as cost convenience issues.

An encyclopedia entry for "absence epilepsy" is presented. It offers clinical information on absence epilepsy, which refers to the prototype for the idiopathic generalized epilepsies (IGE). Absence seizure is characterized with an alteration in consciousness alone or with additional features. It is also described as having abrupt arrest of ongoing activities, stare, eye fluttering and brief impairment of consciousness.

An encyclopedia entry for "versive seizures" is presented. This type of seizure is characterized by eye deviation involving the eyes (oculogyric seizures), with or without head involvement, with or without addition truncal rotation (gyratory seizures). Information is provided on gyratory seizures. It offers an overview of semiologic features of seizures which suggest a region of onset or propagation.

An encyclopedia entry for "sodium valproate" is presented. It relates how the use of valproate in the treatment of epilepsy was discovered. Aside from epilepsy, valproate is also used in the treatment of bipolar disorder and migraine prevention. It discusses the efficacy of valproic acid (VPA) in treating epilepsy and compares its effectiveness with other antiepileptic drugs (AEDs).

An encyclopedia entry for "treatment," in relation to epilepsy, is presented. The treatment of epilepsy is intended to decrease seizures and improve the patient's quality of life. Treatment include antiepileptic drugs (AEDs), surgical intervention and vagal nerve stimulation. AEDs can suppress the frequency of seizures and treat them as a symptom. AED is recommended in patients with more than one spontaneous seizure. Valproate and lamotrigine- or carbamazepine-related AEDs may be effective therapies with selection based upon individual characteristics.

An encyclopedia entry for "syncope" is presented. It refers to a sudden brief loss of consciousness caused by a relative ischemia to the brain due to a decrease in cerebral blood flow. It accounts for 3 percent of emergency department (ED) visitations in the U.S. It notes that syncope is similar to seizure.

An encyclopedia entry for "somatosensory and other sensory seizures" is presented. It refers to seizures that present sensory manifestations. Examples of which are alterations of body sensation, temperature change, paresthesias and pain. It notes that perception of tinnitus may be the result of auditory seizures.

An encyclopedia entry for "sports" is presented. It notes that people suffering from epilepsy are encouraged to be active in sports. It asserted that participation in sporting events should be customized for an individual in order to maximize its benefits. On the other hand, hyperventilation may trigger seizures.

An encyclopedia entry for "sleep and epilepsy" is presented. It notes that sleep is a well-documented factor that affect the occurrence and morphology of seizures. It asserts that sleep disorders such as sleep apnea may result to seizures, as they cause sleep fragmentation and chronic sleep deprivation.

An encyclopedia entry for "sexuality" is presented. It examines the link between seizures and the incidence of sexual dysfunction. It cites several sexual disorders associated with seizures, including reduced arousal, erectile dysfunction, and anorgamia in men. The entry also discusses sexual auras associated with general sensations that may be pleasurable or unpleasurable without sexual content or with symptoms of sexual excitement.

An encyclopedia entry for "Rolandic epilepsy (Benign Childhood Epilepsy With Centro-Temporal Spikes)" is presented. It refers to the most frequent localization-related epilepsy syndrome in childhood. The syndrome is considered benign based on the prognosis in which the ultimate likelihood of remission before puberty is high. It is noted that the condition can occur in previously normal children without neurologic or intellectual deficit.

An encyclopedia entry for "Rasmussen's Encephalitis" is presented. It is a rare childhood disorder of progressive hemispheric atrophy of the brain linked to cognitive dysfunction, hemiparesis and epilepsy. A proven effective treatment of seizures linked to the disorder is epilepsy surgery disconnecting and resecting the abnormal hemisphere.

An encyclopedia entry for "psychosis" is presented. This condition covers a mental expanse that reflects a disintegration of self and its connection to nonself with common features, including impaired content and coherence of thought, reduced connection to reality, hallucinations, delusions, disorganized speech and behavior and extremes of affect and motivation. It is more common among people with epilepsy (PWE).

An encyclopedia entry for "Psychogenic Nonepileptic Seizures" (PNES) is presented. These seizures cover a majority of nonepileptic seizures and are prevalent as trigeminal neuralgia and multiple sclerosis occurring in all ages. These seizures are attributed to 20 to 30% of admissions to epilepsy-monitoring units in patients with intractable seizures.

An encyclopedia entry for "photosensitivity" is presented. It refers to the triggering of clinical seizures or the demonstration of bursts of spontaneous interictal epileptiform discharges (IED) on the electroencephalogram (EEG) by light. Photosensitivity may less frequently be associated with some encephalopathic generalized epilepsies, and it may occur independent of clinical seizures.

An encyclopedia entry for "pregnancy" is presented. More than 1.1 million women in the U.S. have epilepsy, including pregnant women with epilepsy (WWE). Epileptic women conceive with increased frequency. Also, 40% of pregnancies are unplanned. Epilepsy serves as an individual risk factor for birth defects in the offspring of these women but does not appear to be linked with greater teratogenicity beyond those linked with antiepileptic agents (AED).

An encyclopedia entry for "posttraumatic epilepsy" is presented. It refers to spontaneous seizures that occur after penetrating or nonpenetrating head injury not attributable to an alternative cause. Early seizures occur within the first week after the injury, more commonly in children, while late seizures occur after the first week corresponding to a fixed injury to the brain reflecting posttraumatic epilepsy (PTE).

An encyclopedia entry for "positron emission tomography (PET) " is presented. It refers to a functional neuroimaging technique that has proven useful in the localization of seizure foci and in exploration of the underlying in vivo assessment of physiologic functions of epilepsy in humans. The PET scanning process usually involves interictal injection of a radioactive isotope tagged to a physiologic probe, which is taken up in a particular part of brain following preparation of the radioactive isotope by a cyclotron.

An encyclopedia entry for "phenytoin (PHT, diphenylhydantoin, Dilantin)" is presented. It refers to an efficacious drug for partial-onset and generalized tonic-clonic seizures. The most widely used antiepileptic (AED) drug in the U.S., phenytoin is ineffective in absence and myoclonic seizures and may lead to exacerbation of such seizure types. The side effects of the AED include anorexia, nausea, dysarthria and ataxia.

An encyclopedia entry for "partial (focal) seizures" is presented. Partial seizures which have a focal onset are associated with localization-related epilepsy and reflect seizures arising from neuroanatomic or functional neuronal activation restricted to part of one hemisphere. Most commonly originating in the temporal lobes, partial seizures are divided into three groups, including simple partial seizures without impairment of consciousness and complex partial seizures with impaired consciousness.

An encyclopedia entry for "Occipital Lobe Epilepsy" is presented. It offers clinical information on occipital lobe epilepsy, which is characterized with partial seizures that start with a sudden change in visual function. Such visual function changes may include unformed visual hallucinations, colored lights appearing and stereotypic hallucinations. Syndromes associated with occipital lobe epilepsy include benign occipital epilepsy of childhood, migraine and cryptogenic occipital lobe epilepsy.

An encyclopedia entry for "Lupus" is presented. Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) refers to a multiorgan system autoimmune disease that involves neuropsychiatric sequelae during the course of the disease. Particular focus is given to the prevalence of SLE. A poor prognosis indicator in SLE is neurologic involvement. Seizure is one of the most common neuropsychiatric symptoms of SLE. Antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) can cause lupus-like reactions.

An encyclopedia entry for "Magnetoencephalography (MEG)" is presented. It refers to a noninvasive direct measure of the brain's normally inherent electrophysiologic capability of neurons to produce magnetic fields. Sensitive superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) and magnetically shielded rooms are usually used to record the MEG from neuronal sources within the brain.

An encyclopedia entry for "Liver Disease" is presented. Liver plays an important role in the drug metabolism of humans. The pharmacokinetics of all drugs, such as antiepileptic drugs (AEDs), can be affected by liver disease (LD). In patients with epilepsy (PWE), LD may emerge as a complication of AED. Categories of LD that may involve PWE are acute hepatopathies, drug-induced hepatotoxicities and chronic LD. Hepatic encephalopathy may be precipitated by sedating AEDs in patients with compensated LD.

An encyclopedia entry for "juvenile myoclonic epilepsy" (JME) is presented. It is considered an idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE) syndrome with a polygenetic basis caused not by a single but by multiple genes and other factors and is characterized by myoclonic jerks, generalized tonic-clonic (GTC) seizures, and sometimes absence seizures. The defining characteristic of the syndrome is myoclonic seizures, which usually starts in adolescence, typically between 8 and 18 years of age.

An encyclopedia entry for "intracranial encephalography" (EEG) or "electrocorticography" is presented. It is used primarily for epilepsy surgical planning and for functional cortical mapping. Intracranial EEG is also used in the surgical evaluation of patients with intractable LRE only after noninvasive evaluations with scalp EEG yield discordant or nonlocalizable information. The depth recordings of EEG illustrate the variability of spread of the seizure discharge from seizure to seizure.

An encyclopedia entry for "interictal epileptiform discharges" (IED) is presented. IED represents a distinctive group of waveforms that are characteristically seen in persons with epilepsy. The interictal electroencephalography (EEG) during epilepsy may reveal paroxysmal bursts or phase-reversals that are paroxysmal occurring as single events or in bursts and mimic abnormal IEDs. It notes on the important role of EEG in providing ancillary support for a clinical diagnosis of epilepsy.

An encyclopedia entry for "Genetics" is presented. Genetics play an important role in epilepsy. Examples of systemic substrate associated with seizures are tuberous sclerosis, neurofibromatosis and Lafora body disease. Particular focus is given to inheritance patterns associated with seizures. There is an underlying structural disease process or systemic disease process in some inherited epilepsies. Keys to the discovery of genetic foundations of epilepsies are neuronal ion channels and neurotransmitter receptor genes.

An encyclopedia entry for "Frontal Lobe Epilepsy (FLE)" is presented. It refers to the second most common site for partial seizures. Motor manifestations are associated with frontal lobe seizures such as complex gestural automatisms or posturing. There are diverse causes of FLE compared to the partial epilepsies of temporal lobe origin. Particular focus is given to the electroencephalographic presentations of FLE.

An encyclopedia entry for "First Seizure" is presented. Age is an important factor in the specific incidence of a first seizure in children. Particular focus is given to results of studies on the risk of recurrence following an idiopathic first seizure. According to studies, electroencephalography (EEG) is a useful tool for prognosis and in predicting the risk of seizure recurrence. The prognosis of developing epilepsy is not affected by early treatment with antiepileptic drugs (AEDs).

An encyclopedia entry for "epilepsy with continuous spike waves of slow sleep (CSWS)" is presented. This entry identifies CSWS as an epileptic encephalopathy with clinical features of cognitive and behavioral disturbances. It notes the clinical features of CSWS, including neuropsychological impairment that represents a global loss of cognitive milestones.

An encyclopedia entry for "elderly and epilepsy" is presented. It states that elderly people with epilepsy (PWE) are classified as those at least 65 years old. It notes that the number of elderly PWE has increased to make this population an important target for treatment. It adds that the elderly living in institutional settings such as nursing homes, have an increased prevalence of treatment targeted toward epilepsy.

An encyclopedia entry for "EEG (electroencephalography)" is presented. It states that EEG has played a significant role in the evaluation of seizures and is composed of an amplified electrical signal derived from cerebral neuronal activity. It notes that EEG also offers information on the classification of the seizure type and syndrome as well as the characterization of seizures for the purposes of epilepsy surgery.

An encyclopedia entry for "cerebrovascular disease" is presented. It is considered the most common serious neurologic condition in all age groups. Ischemic infarction, hemorrhagic infarction or intracerebral hemorrhage are some of the seizures that may be seen following cerebrovascular disease. Analysis showed that 8.6% of patients developed seizures after ischemic cerebral infarcts. The risk of seizures was favorable with a younger age at the time of stroke. Particular focus is also given to seizures associated with intracerebral hemorrhage.

An encyclopedia entry for "benzodiazepines" is presented. These drugs are used to treat status epilepticus, flurries of seizures and prolonged seizures. Benzodiazepines are considered adjunctive therapies in the chronic epilepsies, particularly myoclonic epilepsies. Information on the drugs' pharmacokinetics, dosage, side effects and indications is also offered.

An encyclopedia entry for "antiepileptic drug (AED) levels" is presented. It cites several sources of AED levels, such as plasma, serum, blood levels, and saliva. It also mentions the potential use of therapeutic ranges, which are provided by the laboratory performing AED assays, as a guide in management, but treatment must be adapted to the needs of the patient.

An encyclopedia entry for "women with epilepsy" is presented. Challenges that involve seizures, treatment of seizures and developing as females in society are encountered by women with epilepsy. It describes the changes in seizures frequency that may be influenced by menarche and menopause. The importance of bone health and general health issues for postmenopausal women is also cited.

An encyclopedia entry for the "Wada test" is presented. It refers to a procedure named after Doctor Juhn Wada that is used preoperatively to evaluate hemispheric lateralization of language and memory function in patients undergoing epilepsy surgery evaluation. It outlines the methods involved in conducting the test, including interventional radiology, neurology, and neuropsychology. It relates the steps in conducting the Wada test. Information is provided on the applications of Wada testing such as evaluation of patients for epilepsy surgery.

An encyclopedia entry for "Wilson's disease" is presented. It refers to a disorder of copper metabolism with hepatic and neurologic sequelae. It relates that about 6% of patients with the disease experienced epilepsy. Seizures may herald the onset of the disease and appear more often while receiving treatment with the use of chelation treatment.

An encyclopedia entry for "vitamins" is presented. It discusses the role of vitamins and dietary supplements in the treatment of persons with epilepsy (PWE). Replacement therapy is recommended for seizures caused by pyridoxine deficiency. It explains the need for vitamin B12 and folate supplementation in patients taking anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs) since these nutrients may be depleted in AED therapy. It provides an overview of bone health issues in PWE.

An encyclopedia entry for "aggressiveness" is presented. It refers to behavior with intent to damage, while violence represents aggressiveness with damage directed toward people or goods. It discusses the aggressiveness and violence among patients with temporal lobe epilepsy. It relates that research has found that cases of ictal or postictal aggression have occurred in patients with chronic medically intractable focal epilepsy of frontal or temporal lobe origin.