title: Should consciousness be included in the classification of focal (partial) seizures?
abstract: The ILAE 2010 report does not classify focal seizures and instead uses “descriptors” to distinguish focal seizures with versus without impaired consciousness. Below, we recall a recent informal conversation that took place while traveling a back road in Australia (true story), discussing problems with the old terms as well as new biological and practical evidence separating events formerly known as complex partial versus simple partial seizures. Impaired level of consciousness is a core distinguishing feature of focal seizures, which arises from established physiological mechanisms and can be readily determined based on behavior in most cases. After some debate, we arrive at succinct terms compatible with the old as well as the new ILAE classification report: Focal Impaired Consciousness Seizures (FICS), and Focal Aware Conscious Seizures (FACS). We hope that this discussion will bring impaired consciousness off the back roads of epilepsy classification, and provide useful names for these two very common seizure types.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA. hal.blumenfeld@yale.edu
authors.forename: Hal
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Blumenfeld
authors.forename: Graeme D
authors.initials: GD
authors.lastname: Jackson
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology; D003243:Consciousness; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004828:Epilepsies, Partial / Q000145:classification* / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D009626:Terminology as Topic