Chapter 15 - Vegetative seizures

Summary

This chapter describes vegetative auras and vegetative epileptic seizures in detail. Vegetative symptoms can also occur in non-epileptic seizures, which need to be considered in the differential diagnosis. Some disorders as pheochromocytoma, carcinoid syndrome, hyperthyroidism, syncope, panic attacks, migraine attacks as well as neurogenic hypertensive crises are examples of such conditions. Estimates of the rate of vegetative auras differ widely, mostly because there is little agreement on the definition of vegetative seizures and because the numbers largely depend on the primary goal of the study and with the format and scrutiny of data acquisition. Bradycardia is mostly described in seizures with a temporal or frontotemporal origin. The prognosis of epilepsy does not depend on the seizure semiology but rather depends on the etiology and/or the epilepsy syndrome. In general, idiopathic generalized epilepsies have a better prognosis than symptomatic focal epilepsies.