CEREBRAL PATHOLOGY IN PSEUDOSEIZURES

Over a 5-year period 17% of admissions to an epilepsy unit in a psychiatric hospital had pseudoseizures; 42% of these patients also had concurrent epilepsy. Memory deficits were common both in those with pseudoseizures alone (50%) and in those with concurrent epilepsy (62%). EEG abnormalities were more common in both groups with pseudoseizures than in a control group of patients with anxiety and affective disorders. Of specific EEG abnormalities only paroxysmal events occurred significantly more frequently in those with concurrent epilepsy than in those with pseudoseizures alone. Organic cerebral pathology is common in those with pseudoseizures and in complicated cases of seizure disorder, the presence of cerebral pathology cannot be relied on to distinguish between epileptic and pseudo-seizures.