THE CLINICAL ASPECTS OF TRAUMATIC EPILEPSY

Epilepsy is an infrequent complication of injury to the head in general. All present information indicates that laceration of the brain is an essential factor, whether or not accompanied by injury to the skull or dura, though accompanying laceration of the dura and especially sepsis greatly increase the liability. It is considered important from the point of view of prognosis to separate early conclusions (within for example the first eight weeks) from epilepsy of later onset. There are also indications that it is advantageous to grade different severities of convulsions, of which the only index we have at present is degree of generalization. Intellectual impairment is an unsatisfactory clinical index of prognosis for the type of head injury which it most frequently follows is one that does not have high liability to convulsive disorder.