Many people suffer from one or more epileptic seizures during life, but not all these people have epilepsy. Moreover, epilepsy is not one disease or syndrome, but a collection of different disorders, which have in common the repeated occurrence of unprovoked epileptic seizures during some time in life.There are many genetically determined and acquired causes of epilepsy. The symptomatology of the seizures can be very different. Also the course in time of epilepsies is very diverging. The cause, symptoms, signs and course are influenced to a great deal by age. Therefore, the epilepsies in childhood and in adulthood differ in many aspects. For this reason, children and adults should not be mixed in studies on epilepsy.

Het Nationale Epilepsiefonds Epilepsia Rotterdam, UCB Nederland Pharma BV, Cyberonics Europe SA/NV, Sanofi-aventis Nederland BV, Janssen-Cilag Nederland BV, Eli Lilly Nederland, GlaxoSmithKline BV
W.F.M. Arts (Willem Frans)
Erasmus University Rotterdam
hdl.handle.net/1765/13133
Erasmus MC: University Medical Center Rotterdam

Stroink, H. (2008, June 5). Diagnosis and Prognosis of Seizures and Epilepsy in Childhood: Dutch study of epilepsy in childhood. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/1765/13133