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Intensive monitoring of interictal psychosis in epilepsy
Author(s) -
Ramani Venkat,
Gumnit Robert J.
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
annals of neurology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.764
H-Index - 296
eISSN - 1531-8249
pISSN - 0364-5134
DOI - 10.1002/ana.410110610
Subject(s) - ictal , epilepsy , psychosis , medicine , psychiatry , neuroscience , psychology
Abstract Ten epileptic patients developed interictal psychosis while being treated in hospital for seizure control. They were subjected to intensive behavioral, video‐electroencephalographic, and serum anticonvulsant monitoring for an average of 7.1 weeks in a specialized epilepsy unit. In 9 patients, the interictal psychosis was indistinguishable from acute schizophrenia. Only 5 of these patients had complex partial seizures; the other 4 showed evidence of generalized epilepsies. Thus a “unique” association between schizophreniform psychosis and complex partial seizures, noted by previous authors, could not be confirmed. Only 1 patient showed normalization of the electroencephalogram during psychosis and an inverse relationship between psychosis and seizure frequency. In most cases the emergence of psychosis could not be explained. Interictal psychosis in epilepsy appears to be a spectrum of disorders that may be multifactorially determined.