Benign neonatal sleep myoclonus: case report and follow-up of four members of an affected family.

Benign neonatal sleep myoclonus (BNSM), characterized by myoclonic jerks of the extremities only in non-REM sleep, occurs in the first months of life with spontaneous disappearance within 3-4 months. We examined five siblings with typical BNSM, at the 3-10 years follow-up neurological examination. Psychomotor development, cognitive functions and EEG were completely normal. These cases confirm that BNSM is a self limited and nonepileptic disorder

Tonic-clonic seizures in a patient with primary hypoparathyroidism: a case report.

Hypoparathyroidism, a life threatening disorder, occurs when insufficient parathyroid hormone is produced to maintain extracellular calcium levels within the normal range. The acute clinical signs and symptoms of hypoparathyroidism are the same as those of hypocalcemia, ranging from tingling to intractable generalized tonic-clonic seizures; therefore, it can be mistaken for epilepsy. We report the case of a 36-year-old man who presented two tonic-clonic seizures, characterized by sudden loss of consciousness with a fall and diffuse tonic contractions and clonic jerks. At first diagnosis of epilepsy was established and therapy with valproate was commenced. In the following days, the patient presented typical signs of hypocalcemia and the diagnosis of hypoparathyroidism was made. In the 4 months follow up, antiepileptic drug therapy was reduced until suspension and calcium supplementation was initiated. We briefly review the most recent reports in the literature

Non-Epileptic Seizures (NES) are predicted by depressive and dissociative symptoms

OBJECTIVES: (1) To measure depressive and dissociative symptoms in a population of patients with Non-Epileptic Seizures (NES, or pseudo-seizures); (2) To compare NES with Epileptic subjects and Normal controls; (3) To try to define a personality profile specific, or typical, of NES patients. METHODS: Patients: 30 consecutive patients (21 females and 9 males, mean age 32.9+/-11.7 years) with NES diagnosed on clinical basis and confirmed by video-EEG recording; 30 patients with epilepsy matched for age and sex who had presented at least two seizures in the 12 months prior to the study despite pharmacological treatment; 30 Control subjects, healthy volunteers, matched for age and sex. Psychometric evaluation: Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HDRS), Dissociative Experience Scale (DES), Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2). Groups were compared by means of one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) for independent samples, followed by posthoc Tukey HSD Test, with Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons. RESULTS: Depressive and dissociative symptoms showed a significantly higher prevalence in the NES group as compared to Epileptics (p70) of one or more scales. No specific personality profile could be identified for the NES group. CONCLUSIONS: Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that depression and dissociative mechanisms are important precursors to the development and expression of NES