Chapter 14 - Introduction to the concept of symptomatic epilepsy

Summary

The developmental/congenital disorders are a gray area between core idiopathic and core acquired epilepsies, and their inclusion under the term symptomatic epilepsy reflects the inevitably artificial nature of all classification schemes. This chapter talks about epilepsy syndromes, temporal characteristics of acquired epilepsy, and provoked epilepsies. The term 'acquired' is used to refer to symptomatic epilepsies excluding the predominately genetic or developmental causes. The main reason for considering epilepsy a symptom is that there are so many different causes, and it is therefore perhaps ironical to note that the current classifications of epilepsy pay no heed to etiology at all, focused as they are on clinical and electrographic semiology. It is clear that the distinctive natures of the underlying pathological and physiological processes underlying symptomatic epilepsy after acute brain insults are very different from those underlying idiopathic epilepsy, and so are the clinical, therapeutic, and prognostic features.