Epilepsy
Epilepsy
Epilepsy
Generalized epilepsy can be categorized by motor onset and non-motor onset features. Generalized epilepsy with motor onset features including tonic-clonic, tonic, atonic, myoclonic, myoclonic-atonic, and epileptic spasms. The motor onset features described the dominant feature of the seizure at the beginning.
Non-motor onset generalized seizures are more difficult to recognize clinically and are often referred to as absence seizures.
Atonic absence is not a subcategory. Atonic (sudden loss of tone) is a feature of Generalized motor onset seizures.
Generalized seizures are divided into motor and non-motor (absence) seizures. Further subdivisions are like those of the 1981 classification, with the addition of myoclonic–atonic seizures, common in epilepsy with myoclonic–atonic seizures, myoclonic–tonic–clonic, myoclonic absence, and absence seizures with eyelid myoclonia seen in the syndrome described by Jeavons and elsewhere.
The word “absence” has a common meaning, but an “absent stare” is not synonymous with an absence seizure since arrest of activity also occurs in other seizure types.