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Epilepsia cursiva
The Forgotten Running Fits
Temporal lobe epilepsy features a wide variety of clinical manifestations. Some of them are considered to be of psychogenic origin.
Motor manifestations like blinking, mastication or gesticulation are
common and easily identified. Even the more complex activity of
walking during a non-convulsive status is well documented. However, running as an ictal manifestation of temporal lobe epilepsy is
uncommon and probably often unrecognised. We report a new case,
which illustrates the typical features of the so-called running fits.
In 1985, this 45-year-old right-handed healthy accountant developed left sensory seizures leading to the diagnosis of a right parietal
tumor confirmed by biopsy as an astrocytoma grade 2.
Over the next years, the patient progressively developed a sensorimotor deficit of the left hemibody, occassionally accompanied by
involuntary forced closure of the right eyelid.
CT scan and MRI showed progression of the tumor size with
extension into the frontotemporal regions (fig. 1), and a second biopsy confirmed transformation into grade 3. Clonazepam was introduced as anticonvulsive medication, and loco-regional radiotherapy
led to a significant reduction of the tumor size, an improvement of
the left hemisyndrome and the seizure frequency.
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References
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8 Sethi PK, Rao TS: Gelastic, quiritarian, and cursive epilepsy: A clinicopathological appraisal. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 1976;39:823828.
9 Walsh GO, Delgado-Escueta AV: Type II complex partial seizures: Poor
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