THE SURGICAL TREATMENT OF PSYCHOMOTOR EPILEPSY

Abstract

Recent advances in the diagnosis and localization of different types of epileptic seizure have revealed that confusional episodes, in which the patient performs apparently purposeful but coarse and poorly coordinated movements, are usually associated with an epileptic focus in one or both anterior temporal regions. 1 Such attacks have been referred to as psychomotor seizures. 2 They are by no means a rare type of epilepsy. They occur in approximately one third of adult epileptics, either in pure form or in association with convulsive seizures. In the past three years, 1,250 patients have been studied by one of us (F. A. G.). Of these, 95 per cent had an anterior temporal focus of seizure activity. When patients were selected because of the presence of an anterior temporal focus, it was found that 98 per cent had a psychomotor type of seizure clinically. It has been concluded that psychomotor epilepsy is