1985 Volume 17 Issue 6 Pages 491-499
A neuropsychological and electroencephalographic study was done in a case of epileptic encephalopathy with marked dysphasia. The main lingustic disturbance was marked decrease of expressive language and impairement of auditory comprehension of colloquial language. The feature of the dysphasia resembled that of “global aphasia”. There was a significant correlation between the diffuse sharp and wave bursts in EEG and the degree of dysphasia. However, reduction of paroxysmal discharges preceded improvement of the language disorder. Ictal EEG with atypical absence was recorded, and an all-night EEG showed “electrical status epilepticus during sleep (ESES)”. It was postulated, from these data, that pathophysiology in this case involved both cortical and subcortical area, and the linguistic symptom was not merely “aphasia” nor “agnosia”, but was the result of more diffuse epileptic encephalopathy.
