Abstracts

Rationale: The causes of epilepsy vary extensively depending on the geographic location.It also depends on the age group studied and the evaluation process used.However,most epidemiological studies are either population based, or are based on evaluation of refractory epilepsy patients in a tertiary care set up.We wanted to study and classify the patients seen in an epilepsy clinic in our private hospital in Kolkata depending on the seizure type & etiology.Methods: All patients attending the epilepsy clinic over a 6 month period were selected for the study.Their data was then retrospectively analysed to identify the cause and type of epilepsy.A detalied clinical history & examination was done in all cases.Necessary investigations like blood biochemistry, MRI of Brain & video EEG were done as applicable.The data were then tabulated and analyzedResults: Overall 164 patients were seen in the epilepsy clinic.14 had nonepileptic events and were excluded from the study.Out of the 150 patients, 80 were male & 70 were female.The age group ranged from 3 months to 82 years..35% had generalized epilepsy.63% had partial epilepsy with or without secondary generalization.2% had epileptic spasms.10% had epilepsy due to infectious causes with neurocysticercosis being the commonest & tuberculosis being the second most common.Stroke, however was the second most common cause.In adults, stroke and trauma were the most important cause.In pediatric age groupdevelopmental malformations and hypoxic brain injury were the two most common causes after infections.In 15% of the cases no identifiable cause could be found.Conclusions: Neurological infections still remain the commonest cause of epilepsy seen in an epilepsy clinic.Trauma, birth asphyxia and stroke are also fairly common depending on the age group studied.Most of these epilepsies are thus preventable with better health care facility & community education.