Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2018 Jan 18:14:327-337.
doi: 10.2147/NDT.S107669. eCollection 2018.

Reflex epilepsy: triggers and management strategies

Zeynep Vildan Okudan  1 , Çiğdem Özkara  2
Affiliations
Review

Reflex epilepsy: triggers and management strategies

Zeynep Vildan Okudan et al. Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat. .

Abstract

Reflex epilepsies (REs) are identified as epileptic seizures that are consistently induced by identifiable and objective-specific triggers, which may be an afferent stimulus or by the patient's own activity. RE may have different subtypes depending on the stimulus characteristic. There are significant clinical and electrophysiologic differences between different RE types. Visual stimuli-sensitive or photosensitive epilepsies constitute a large proportion of the RE and are mainly related to genetic causes. Reflex epilepsies may present with focal or generalized seizures due to specific triggers, and sometimes seizures may occur spontaneously. The stimuli can be external (light flashes, hot water), internal (emotion, thinking), or both and should be distinguished from triggering precipitants, which most epileptic patients could report such as emotional stress, sleep deprivation, alcohol, and menstrual cycle. Different genetic and acquired factors may play a role in etiology of RE. This review will provide a current overview of the triggering factors and management of reflex seizures.

Keywords: hot water; photosensitivity; reading; reflex epilepsy; seizure; thinking.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Disclosure The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.

References

    1. Satishchandra P, Ullal GR, Shankar SK. Hot water epilepsy. In: Zifkin BG, Andermann F, Beaumanoir A, Rowan AJ, editors. Reflex Epilepsy and Reflex Seizures Advances in Neurology. Philadelphia: Lippincott-Raven; 1998. pp. 283–294. - PubMed
    1. Proposal for revised classification of epilepsies and epileptic syndromes Commission on Classification and Terminology of the International League Against Epilepsy. Epilepsia. 1989;30(4):389–399. - PubMed
    1. Scheffer IE, Berkovic S, Capovilla G, et al. ILAE classification of the epilepsies: position paper of the ILAE Commission for Classification and Terminology. Epilepsia. 2017;58(4):512–521. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Fisher RS. The new classification of seizures by the International League Against Epilepsy 2017. Curr Neurol Neurosci Rep. 2017;17(6):48. - PubMed
    1. Engle J, Jr, Pedley TA. Epilepsy: A Comprehensive Textbook. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 2008.

LinkOut - more resources