Advances in the Treatment of Epilepsy -- American Family Physician

www.aafp.org/afp AMERICAN FAMILY PHYSICIAN 91 tion or video review because the diagnosis requires other information, such as age of onset, etiology, family history, seizure frequency, imaging studies, precipitating factors, electroencephalography (EEG) and natural history. Most types of epilepsy are characterized by more than one type of seizure. Patients with focal (or partial) epilepsy may have simple partial, complex partial and secondarily generalized tonic-clonic seizures (e.g., partial seizures with secondary generalization). Patients with generalized epilepsy may have one or more of the following seizure types: absence, myoclonic, tonic, clonic, tonic-clonic and atonic. Thus, no seizure type is specific for a single type of epilepsy. Seizures are symptoms, and patients should be treated for a type of epilepsy, not for a type of seizure. Table 1 shows the main seizure types and their characteristics. Table 2 shows the main types of epilepsy.