Clinical features of epilepsy in children (patients) with severe motor and intellectual disabilities.

Abstract

Characteristics of epilepsy including underlying diseases, complication with epileptic encephalopathy, seizure types and epilepsy classifications were investigated in our 81 residents with severe motor and intellectual disabilities (young and elderly adults) of 20 years of age or older, who had developed epilepsy in their childhood. The subjects were divided into two groups (the frequent-attack group and non-frequent attack group). The frequent-attack group included more patients with prenatal etiology as well as those complicated with epileptic encephalopathy compared to the non-frequent attack group. The commonest seizure type was myoclonus, and many of the patients had experienced multiple types of seizures in various combinations (e.g. “tonic + clonic", “tonic + myoclonus", “clonic + myoclonus", “tonic + focal-motor", “myoclonus + focal-motor", “focal-motor + from focal to bilateral tonic-clonic"). In terms of epilepsy classification, many patients appeared to have both generalized and focal seizures. Old anti-epileptic drugs had been mainly used in both groups. Many of the patients in both groups had been treated with hepatic enzyme-inducing dugs (EIAED: enzyme-inducing anti-epileptic drugs). In the group using EIAED, the serumγ-GTP or ALP level was higher and more patients had history of fractures compared to the other group not treated with EIAPD.