Subclinical epileptiform activity accelerates the progression of Alzheimer's disease: A long-term EEG study.

Objective: While many studies suggest that patients with Alzheimer's disease have a higher chance for developing epileptic seizures, only a few studies are available examining independent epileptic discharges. The major aims of our study was to determine the prevalence of subclinical epileptiform activity (SEA) in AD compared to healthy elderly controls with the hypothesis that SEA is more frequent in AD than in cognitively normal individuals. Another aim was to analyze the effect of baseline SEA captured with electroencephalography on the progression of the disease with longitudinal cognitive testing.

Prevalence, Semiology, and Risk Factors of Epilepsy in Alzheimer's Disease: An Ambulatory EEG Study.

Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the primary cause of cognitive decline. A growing body of evidence suggests that AD patients have a higher risk to develop epileptic seizures; however, results are contradictory due to different methodological approaches of previous studies.

Objective: We aimed to identify the prevalence, semiology, and risk factors of epilepsy in AD using long-term EEG.

Interictal Epileptiform Activity in the Foramen Ovale Electrodes of a Frontotemporal Dementia Patient.

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is a frequent cause of cognitive decline. While epilepsy is an important comorbidity of Alzheimer's disease, we lack studies on its presence in FTD. We report on an FTD patient with transient, short-term changes of behavior and cognitive performance suggesting non-convulsive epilepsy.

Sleep EEG Detects Epileptiform Activity in Alzheimer's Disease with High Sensitivity.

Background: The reported prevalence of epilepsy in Alzheimer's disease (AD) is variable, probably due to the different methodological approaches.

Objective: We aimed to define the optimal electroencephalogram (EEG) settings for reliable detection of epileptiform discharges in AD patients.

Methods: We analyzed 24-h EEGs of 5 patients living with AD and epilepsy.

Epileptic Seizures in Alzheimer Disease: A Review.

Alzheimer disease (AD) is the most frequent cause of major neurocognitive disorders with a huge economical and medical burden. Several studies pointed out that AD is associated with a high risk for developing epileptic seizures. The aims of our review were to evaluate and to summarize the current literature (ending in September 2015) of animal and human studies in the relation of AD and epileptic seizures.

Anti glutamate-decarboxylase antibodies: a liaison between localisation related epilepsy, stiff-person syndrome and type-1 diabetes mellitus.

We present two patients with partial epilepsy, type-1 diabetes and stiff person syndrome associated with high serum auto-antibody levels to glutamate-decarboxylase (anti-GAD). Both patients were or have suffered from additional autoimmune conditions. The presence of stiff person syndrome and elevated anti-GAD levels have to make clinicians look for additional autoimmune conditions including type-1 diabetes.

LADA type diabetes, celiac diasease, cerebellar ataxia and stiff person syndrome. A rare association of autoimmune disorders.

Celiac disease--in its typical form--is a chronic immune-mediated enteropathy with typical clinical symptoms that develops against gliadin content of cereal grains, and is often associated with other autoimmune diseases. In cases of atypical manifestation classic symptoms may be absent or mild, and extra-intestinal symptoms or associated syndromes dominate clinical picture. The authors present a longitudinal follow-up of such a case.

Violent somnambulism: a parasomnia of young men with stereotyped dream-like experiences.

Objective: To characterize a subgroup of arousal parasomnias associated with violent behavior in adults.

Design: A pilot study on clinical and polysomnographic data of 13 adult patients seen in a tertiary sleep center for the suspicion of arousal parasomnia associated with violence.

Results: Nine young patients (8 males 1 female) had a common pattern of abnormalities: similar 'claustrophobic' dream-like experiences and complex, vehement dream enactments; no REM sleep without atonia on polysomnography.

Clinical experiences with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease: three case studies.

The clinical picture, electroencephalographic, imaging and cerebrospinal fluid parameters as well as the molecular background of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease have been well explored. The diagnostic criteria, offering clinicians a fair chance to identify these patients in vivo, have recently been updated. However, the diagnosis is still a challenge in everyday neurological routine.

Our clinical experience with zonisamide in resistant generalized epilepsy syndromes.

Purpose: Zonisamide is licensed in the European Union for adjunctive therapy for partial epilepsy, but its efficacy in generalized epilepsy was less explored.

Methods: This prospective observational study included 47 patients (mean age 29 years, range 3-50) with different resistant generalized epilepsy syndromes: idiopathic generalized syndromes (IGE) 15 patients, (juvenile myoclonic epilepsy four, absence epilepsy four, myoclonic absence two, unclassified IGE five), progressive myoclonic epilepsy type 1 (PME1) four, severe myoclonic epilepsy of infancy (SMEI) three, borderline SMEI three, Lennox-Gastaut syndrome/secondary generalized epileptic encephalopties 23 patients. All patients were followed up for at least six months.

Late-life absence status epilepticus: a female disorder?

We report on three women and a review of the literature on absence status epilepticus over the age of 50 years. Our aim was to characterize the male-female ratio in this condition. Out of 16 studies on absence status epilepticus over the age of 50, including our cases, a female dominance was found in 15.

The risk of paradoxical levetiracetam effect is increased in mentally retarded patients.

Purpose: Incidental paradoxical antiepileptic effect of levetiracetam has been described. The aim of the present study was to identify the epilepsy patients at risk.

Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis in 207 patients treated with levetiracetam.

[Clinical experience with levetiracetam for adults with epilepsy].

Objective: A retrospective study to evaluate the efficacy of levetiracetam in the treatment of adult pharmacoresistant epilepsy.

Method: Retrospective work up of our treatment-experiences with 55 pharmacoresistant patients treated with levetiracetam (11 of them on monotherapy) for 6-39 months. Three treatment groups were analysed: idiopathic generalised epilepsy (9 patients); partial epilepsy (30 patients); malignant or malignated epileptic syndromes (16 patients).

[Sudden death and mortality in epilepsy].

Mortality in epilepsy is 2-3 times higher than in the age- and sex-matched general population. It is the highest in young male epilepsy patients with generalised tonic-clonic seizures living in low socio-economical situation. The main factors of early mortality unrelated to seizures are the neurological conditions underlying epilepsy.

[Supplementary sensory-motor seizures--symptomatology, etiology, and surgical management with illustrative case reports].

In the past decade, owing to the advance of epilepsy surgery, growing knowledge has accumulated on the role of the supplementary motor area, described by Penfield and coworkers in the early fifties, in movement regulation and on the characteristics of seizures involving this area. In the Hungarian neurological literature this topic--despite its neurophysiological and practical clinical importance--has been hardly touched. The authors, based on their own experience obtained from surgeries performed within the framework of the "Co-operative Epilepsy Surgery Program", describe the electrophysiological features of this area, its role in movement regulation and the symptoms of epileptic seizures stemmed from or spread onto this area.

Generalised paroxysmal fast activity (GPFA) is not always a sign of malignant epileptic encephalopathy.

Purpose: Generalised paroxysmal fast activity (GPFA) consists of 8-26 (most frequently around 10 Hz), 2-50 seconds (usually below 10 seconds) bursts of generalised rhythmic discharges with frontal predominance, appearing most frequently during NREM sleep. The pattern is traditionally linked to Lennox-Gastaut (LGS) or late LGS (LLGS) syndrome and associated with tonic-axial seizures, pharmaco-resistency and poor prognosis including mental deterioration. We present here four patients with GPFA, who had neither LGS/LLGS syndrome, nor mental deterioration, two of them are seizure-free, two had infrequent seizures on medication.