Risks of Occurrence of Psychoses in Relation to the Types of Epilepsies and Epileptic Seizures

Abstract

The possible existence of the risks of occurrence of psychoses was examined in relation to the types of epilepsies and epileptic seizures. This study consisted of two investigations: 1) A study of 879 epileptic patients was conducted in which the incidence of psychoses in the different types of epilepsies was surveyed; the result was that the incidence in temporal lobe epilepsy was the highest, being relatively higher than that of other (non-temporal lobe) partial epilepsies but not significantly different from that of generalized epilepsies. 2) A comparative study was carried out on 96 patients with temporal lobe epilepsy in which 48 were psychotic and another 48 were non-psychotic which served as a control group. The differences of seizure symptomatology between the two groups were compared. The results were that the psychotic group was found to exhibit at a significantly higher rate generalized tonic-clonic convulsion and compound seizure manifestations in comparison with the non-psychotic group. The results appear to support the fact that generalizing mechanisms of temporal lobe epileptic manifestations are closely related to a physiopathogenic factor influencing psychoses.