Reported seizures in early childhood: a 14-year follow-up.
A detailed medical history is commonly regarded as a reliable means of classifying unexplained childhood losses of consciousness into diagnostic groups such as febrile seizures, epileptic attacks and breath-holding spells. The authors have tested this assumption by comparing adolescent follow-up status with the initial medical history in 56 individuals who suffered sudden losses of consciousness before age five. Only three of these 56 were epileptic when followed-up in adolescence and only two had received anticonvulsants at any time. The prognosis for 26 individuals with afebrile seizures without evidence of breath-holding syncope was not significantly worse than that for another 16 with febrile seizures. These findings indicate a good prognosis for untreated childhood seizures of a type often classified as epileptic.
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008607:Intellectual Disability / Q000523:psychology; D008297:Male; D019965:Neurocognitive Disorders / Q000523:psychology; D012008:Recurrence; D012640:Seizures / Q000523:psychology*; D003294:Seizures, Febrile / Q000523:psychology; D013575:Syncope / Q000523:psychology