New research may help in getting a correct diagnosis

[Bernard]

A surprisingly large percentage of the epilepsyepilepsy patients who do not respond to medication don't really have the disorder. It often takes a decade or longer for these patients to get a correct diagnosis, but new research finds there are simple clues that can make a correct diagnosis easier.

A patient's eye movements during a seizure can help distinguish seizures caused by epilepsy from those psychological in nature.

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Researchers from the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Ariz. reviewed videos of 221 people having seizures. They found that 50 of the 52 people having nonepileptic seizures closed their eyes during the event, while 152 of 156 having epileptic seizures kept their eyes open or blinked until the seizure was over.

Epilepsy or Psychological Seizures?