[Psychoses and dementia in epilepsy (clinical picture, syndromokinesis, prognosis)]

Abstract

Using clinical, biographic and social parameters the authors analyzed the results of long-term observation on a group of patients (n = 450) with epilepsy accompanied by psychotic disturbances. Prognostic signs of a favourable variant included the predominance of homogeneous attacks and an affective structure of psychotic disorders. In cases with a moderately severe variant paroxysmal manifestations were presented by an array of temporal and unfolded convulsive forms. Psychotic disorders of the hallucinatory-delirious type serve as signs of a late exacerbation of the epileptic process. An unfavourable variant was characterized by polymorphic attacks with predominance of postural and psychomotor components, frequent states of decompensation, an increase in signs of epileptic dementia and a wide spectrum of psychotic disturbances, ranging from overworship ideas to affective-delirious and catatonic-delirious psychoses.