The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on a Greek cohort of patients with epilepsy.

Background: The Covid-19 pandemic, the subsequent lockdown, and the measures of social distancing may have had adverse effects on patients with epilepsy (PWE). This study was designed to assess the pandemic's psychological impact on the Greek non-infected PWE and possible changes in their seizure control.

Method: The patients were evaluated utilizing a semi-structured interview consisting of open questions regarding their demographic, social, and clinical characteristics, followed by five questions (on a scale of 0-10) related to the Covid-19 pandemic, lockdown, and social distancing measures.

Juvenile myoclonic epilepsy is not associated with the DRPLA gene in a European population.

Background: Juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME), is an early-onset inherited generalized epilepsy which displays genetic heterogeneity, with at least 10 known loci. Another neurogenetic disease, dentato-rubro-pallido-luysian atrophy (DRPLA) presents three clinical phenotypes, one of which in Japanese displays many similarities to JME.

Aim: The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the DRPLA gene is associated with JME in Caucasians.

Hypohidrosis induced by topiramate in an adult patient.

Hypohidrosis is an uncommon and reversible side effect of topiramate treatment, reported mainly in children. This report presents an adult patient with complex partial seizures who was treated with topiramate and developed hypohidrosis coupled with hyperthermia, related to high environmental temperature and physical exercise. Reduced sweat response was confirmed using the Neuropad test.

Personality profile of patients with juvenile myoclonic epilepsy.

In the study described here we attempted to evaluate the personality profiles of 25 patients with juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME) at the time of diagnosis, before treatment, and to explore a potential relationship between behavioral aspects and clinical outcome. For this purpose we employed a standardized and objective instrument, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), and found that patients with JME have a personality profile similar to that of the control group, which corresponds to the 3,1 code type MMPI profile. We also noted that the characteristics of this personality type include those described in patients with long-duration JME by previous researchers.