Lasting effects are more pronounced in children who had other neurological problems before their seizure, researchers say.<\/p>\n The study — the first of its kind worldwide — provides insight into the long-term health impact of convulsive status epilepticus (CSE), in which a single seizure, or series of seizures, lasts for at least 30 minutes.<\/p>\n Its findings will be important for doctors as they try to predict what the lasting outcomes might be for families, and how to monitor and treat children who had CSE.<\/p>\n CSE is the most common medical emergency in young children, affecting 1 in 5000 people per year in the developed world. Long-term consequences of CSE are not well established.<\/p>\n Researchers based at the University of Edinburgh and UCL (University College London) followed the health of more than 100 children for nine years after they had CSE.<\/p>\n Lasting neurological conditions, including epilepsy, learning disabilities and movement problems were more common than expected for children from the general population<\/strong>, the study found.<\/p>\n Children who had existing neurological or developmental issues at the time of a CSE were more likely to have a neurological problem at follow up, researchers say.<\/p>\n Children without an existing neurological or developmental issue tended to have more positive outcomes.<\/p>\n The findings offer fresh insights into the biological cause of long-term brain conditions in children after CSE and could help doctors decide on treatment for patients.<\/p>\n The study is published in the journal\u00a0The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health<\/em>.<\/p>\n Richard Chin, Director of the University of Edinburgh’s Muir Maxwell Epilepsy Centre, who led the study, said: “Our study indicates that children with pre-existing neurological conditions are far more likely to experience chronic neurological and cognitive problems following convulsive status epilepticus. This is a very important finding for planning long-term treatment for children whose brains may be more vulnerable to the effects of a prolonged seizure.<\/p>\n “The findings also give hope to families whose children did not have neurological problems before, as the long-term effects of their child’s prolonged seizure may not be as marked as might be expected.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the University of Edinburgh press release: Prolonged convulsive seizures in childhood could be linked to the development of other brain conditions, a study suggests. Lasting effects are more pronounced… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10,6],"tags":[42,45,422,180,73,65,93,421],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25087"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25087"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25310,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25087\/revisions\/25310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/brain-waves-eeg.jpg\")
Prolonged convulsive seizures in childhood could be linked to the development of other brain conditions<\/strong>, a study suggests.<\/p>\n