Clinico-Electroencephalographical Study of Focal Epilepsy with Special Reference to "Benign Epilepsy of Children with Centro-Temporal EEG Foci" and Its Age Dependency

Childhood epilepsy with nocturnal seizure and rolandic (centro-temporal) discharge on EEG, had recently been noted by some French and other European authors. These types of epilepsy usually appeared in middle childhood and showed a favorable effect ot anticonvulsant therapy. The present investigation deals with analysis of seizures and of some characteristics of rolandic discharge, particularly with respect to the cerebral maturational process involved in the appearance of seizure discharge. The patients were selected out by the symptoms of epilepsy and features of EEG's, consisting of 20 children in total. Fifteen patients showed somatomotor attacks and five showed somatosensory as well as somatomotor attacks. As for the duration of seizure, those who had seizures before three and 10 years of age, had attacks for relatively short periods, whereas those who had attacks from four to nine years of age, usually had longer duration. The amplitude of "RD" remained lower than 50 muv up to three years of age, whereas it reached as high as 200 muv up to nine years, particularly during sleep, which became lower after the age of 10. It was concluded that there is an age dependency between the ages of four and nine.