UMEM Educational Pearls

Title: Discovering the Cause of First-time Seizures

Category: Neurology

Keywords: seizure, idiopathic seizure (PubMed Search)

Posted: 3/9/2011 by Aisha Liferidge, MD
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The onset of idiopathic seizures typically affects patients between ages 5 and 20.

Therefore, be highly suspicious of a diagnosable etiology in patients who present with new onset seizure prior to age 5 or after age 20.

Common causes of such seizures include:

Tumors or other structural brain lesions (i.e. intracranial hemorrhage)
Traumatic brain injury
Abrupt cessation of alcohol abuse
Dementia ( i.e. Alzheimer's disease)
Congenital brain defects
Intra-partum brain injury
Hypoglycemia or hyponatremia
Renal or hepatic insufficiency
Cocaine or amphetamine illicit drug use
Abrupt cessation of benzodiazepines, barbiturates, analgesics (i.e. morphine, gabapentin), or sleeping pills
Infection (i.e. brain abscess, meningitis, encephalitis, neurosyphilis, AIDS)
Phenylketonuria (PKU) in infants