Medico-legal aspects of violence with epilepsy

Abstract EN

Aggression or/and violence are extremely rare during epileptic seizures, though an artifactual impression of them be common has been a longstanding one.

Most of the studies which gave support to a positive relationship between epilepsy and violence had been criticized for many drawbacks.

Nevertheless, evidence is accumulating that violence does occur, but rarely, solely due to epileptic seizures.

The serious medico-legal implications of such a link demands reliable and valid criteria to help diagnose those rare epileptic patients who commit violence solely due to their epilepsy.