[Acquired aphasia in a child with epilepsy (Landau-Kleffner syndrome). Comments apropos of a case with 1-year follow-up].
Authors report a case of Landau-Kleffner syndrome in a 6 year old boy. Landau-Kleffner syndrome is a rare disorder characterized by the combination of acquired aphasia and epileptic abnormalities like diffuse spikes-and-waves in sleep EEG. Seizures are associated in 50 to 80% of cases and generally disappear at puberty. Behavior disorder ranges from minor psychomotor disturbances to psychotic-like features. Onset appears at an age between 3 to 7 years. The relationship between aphasia and epilepsy remains unclear, even if language improvement frequently follows EEG improvement. The hypothesis of an underlying encephalitis could explain the whole syndrome but is not yet validated. Therapy should associate antiepileptic drugs, corticosteroid treatment and speech therapy, but no controlled study is available to confirm this protocol. Aphasia recovery is generally incomplete. The evolution of behavior disorder is not well documented. In the reported case, one year after onset, sleep EEG again became normal, behavior disturbances had disappeared, but spoken language was still absent.
Lignac
L
L
Service Universitaire de Psychiatrie et de Psychologie médicale, CHU Toulouse, Hôpital de Casselardit.
Bonnet
D
D
Chabrol
H
H
Hebert
J C
JC
Calvet
U
U
Osmond
P
P
Augot
O
O
D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology; D002648:Child; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D018887:Landau-Kleffner Syndrome / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy; D008297:Male; D009460:Neurologic Examination; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D017286:Polysomnography