title: Extreme self-injury attributed to frontal lobe seizures.
abstract: Extreme self-injury (e.g., head-banging, skin-gouging, and self-biting) among mentally retarded people has typically been very difficult to reduce or eliminate. Clinicians design behavior programs to reduce these behaviors based on various theories that presume this is volitional behavior. In this study specific limb and eye movements plus other ictal phenomena were catalogued from the neurologic literature on frontal lobe seizures. Ten patients were described who presented the clinical picture of frontal lobe seizures. Extreme self-injury in some brain-damaged persons was therefore regarded as involuntary, and need for recognition of this behavior as frontal lobe dysfunction, not a "behavior problem" under voluntary control, was noted.
authors.affiliation: Provincial Facility for Mentally Handicapped Adults, New Westminster, British Columbia.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gedye
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004828:Epilepsies, Partial / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012652:Self Mutilation / Q000503:physiopathology*