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Chapter 11 - Post-traumatic Epilepsy and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 August 2021

By
Marco Mula
Edited by
Marco Mula
Marco Mula
Affiliation:
St George's Hospital Medical School, University of London
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Summary

People with traumatic brain injury (TBI) can develop a variety of behavioural changes and psychiatric problems as a consequence of the TBI but the relationship with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has received increasing attention only recently.

The aim of this chapter is to discuss current literature on the relationship between PTSD and epilepsy in terms of neurobiology and clinical correlates and the potential relationship with TBI. As shown for other psychiatric disorders, people with PTSD seem to have a 3 to 6 times increased risk of developing epilepsy and this can be explained by a number of shared neurobiological mechanisms in addition to the role of brain damage when PTSD is associated with TBI. However, psychogenic-non-epileptic seizures (PNES) seem to be even more closely associated with PTSD, carrying sometimes substantial challenges in terms of differential diagnosis.

Data on treatment of PTSD are also reviewed, discussing specific issues of people with epilepsy, namely interactions and seizure risk.

Keywords

post-traumatic stress disorderepilepsytraumatic brain injury
Type
Chapter
Information
Post-traumatic Epilepsy , pp. 149 - 156
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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