Identifying seizure clusters in patients with epilepsy.
Clinicians often encounter patients whose neurologic attacks appear to cluster. In a daily diary study, the authors explored whether clustering is a true phenomenon in epilepsy and can be identified in the clinical setting. Nearly half the subjects experienced at least one episode of three or more seizures in 24 hours; 20% also met a statistical clustering criterion. Utilizing the clinical definition of clustering should identify all seizure clusterers, and false positives can be determined with diary data.
Haut
S R
SR
Comprehensive Epilepsy Management Center, Montefiore Medical Center, The Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA. haut@aecom.yu.edu
Lipton
R B
RB
LeValley
A J
AJ
Hall
C B
CB
Shinnar
S
S
D000328:Adult; D002908:Chronic Disease; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D005189:False Positive Reactions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008499:Medical Records; D009460:Neurologic Examination; D012008:Recurrence; D013029:Space-Time Clustering; D016008:Statistical Distributions; D013997:Time Factors