Clinical, Radiological and electroencephalographic characteristics of seizures after stroke in king hussien medical center

Abstract EN

Stroke is one of the most common causes of epilepsy in elderly.

This prospective study aimed to see the clinical, radiological and electroencephalographic characteristics of seizures in stroke and their outcome, in Jordan at King Hussein Medical Centre.

Over a span of approximately 2 years, 120 consecutive patients with stroke were studied and followed up.

Fifteen (12.5 %) of these developed seizures, primarily related to stroke, during mean follow up period of 16 months.

Ten of these had infarctions while five had hemorrhages.

Involvement of the cortical region was seen in most of the patients with seizures.

In these patients, 87 % of the lesions involved cortical areas exclusively or in addition to subcortical areas on CT scan of the brain.

Eleven (73 %) developed earl seizures, seven of them had immediate post-stroke seizures.

None of the patients with early onset seizures developed recurrent seizures or epilepsy, while 2 (50 %patients) of late onset seizures developed epilepsy.

No specific EEG pattern was found in those who later developed epilepsy.

In the present study, early onset seizures after stroke were rather common and did not affect the outcome.

Late onset seizures were less common but were associated with recurrent seizures.