title: Latency to first psychogenic nonepileptic seizure upon admission to inpatient EEG monitoring: evidence for semiological differences.
abstract: Two hundred sixteen consecutive patients diagnosed with psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES) admitted to the epilepsy monitoring unit at our institution over a 4.5-year period were retrospectively identified. PNES were classified into four semiological subcategories: major motor (n=123), minor motor (n=38), akinetic (n=32), and subjective/experiential (n=23). The median latency to first PNES for the entire population was 7 hours (range: <1 to 207 hours), confirming previous observations that the latency to first PNES on admission is often <24 hours. The novel observation is that latency to first PNES was dependent on type. The median latency to first PNES was significantly prolonged in both the minor motor (median=21 hours) and subjective/experiential (median=22 hours) groups as compared with the major motor (median=5 hours) and akinetic (median=4 hours) groups. Thus, patients with one of these two subtypes may require longer admissions to capture the event of interest and confirm the diagnosis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University of Virginia Healthsystem, Charlottesville, VA, USA.
authors.forename: Margaret W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Perrin
authors.forename: Sanjiv K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Sahoo
authors.forename: Howard P
authors.initials: HP
authors.lastname: Goodkin
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007297:Inpatients; D053208:Kaplan-Meier Estimate; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011602:Psychophysiologic Disorders / Q000145:classification / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012640:Seizures / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000401:mortality / Q000523:psychology*; D014741:Video Recording / Q000379:methods; D055815:Young Adult