1043-3155 Pediatr Neurol Briefs pedneurbriefs Pediatr Neurol Briefs Pediatric Neurology Briefs Pediatr Neurol Briefs 2166-6482 1043-3155 2166-3155 Pediatric Neurology Briefs Publishers Chicago, IL, USA PNB-16-30-b 10.15844/pedneurbriefs-16-4-9 Seizure Disorders Neurology Pediatrics Nervous System Diseases Child Development Brain Diseases Neurosurgery Child Infant Tests of Attention in Newly Diagnosed Idiopathic Epilepsy http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0173-7931 Millichap J. Gordon MD 1 2 * Division of Neurology, Children's Memorial Hospital, Chicago, IL Departments of Pediatrics and Neurology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL Correspondence: Dr. J. Gordon Millichap, E-mail: jgmillichap@northwestern.edu 04 2002 01 04 2016 16 4 30 31 Copyright: © 2002 The Author(s) 2002 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Attention deficits are not characteristic of schoolchildren with newly diagnosed idiopathic or cryptogenic epilepsy

Performance on tests of Reaction Time, Color Trails, Manual Tapping and Steadiness, and Sustained Attention were compared in 51 children with epilepsy (age 7-16 years) and 48 healthy classmates, in a study at Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital, Utrecht, the Netherlands.

 Newly Diagnosed Idiopathic Epilepsy Behavior Difficulties Antiepileptic Medications

Performance on tests of Reaction Time, Color Trails, Manual Tapping and Steadiness, and Sustained Attention were compared in 51 children with epilepsy (age 7-16 years) and 48 healthy classmates, in a study at Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital, Utrecht, the Netherlands. Execution times and motor speed were not significantly different in children with epilepsy and controls. Significantly more patients than controls had transient poor performance in one or other task (69% cf 40%). Patients with prior school or behavior difficulties and those whose parents could not adjust to a diagnosis of epilepsy performed worse than those without these additional problems. Epilepsy-related variables did not explain any variance in performance of attention and other tasks. [1]

COMMENT. Children with newly diagnosed idiopathic epilepsy without other complications are not subject to persistent deficits in attentiveness. Treatment with antiepileptic medications had no adverse effects on attention in this study. Prior school and behavioral difficulties and maladjustment to the diagnosis of epilepsy, but not epilepsy variables, may be associated with impaired attention

Oostrom KJ Schouten A Kruitwagen CL Peters AC Jennekens-Schinkel A Dutch Study of Epilepsy in Childhood (DuSECh) Attention deficits are not characteristic of schoolchildren with newly diagnosed idiopathic or cryptogenic epilepsy Epilepsia 2002 Mar 43 3 301 310 10.1046/j.1528-1157.2002.32301.x 11906516