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Updated: May 25, 2026

Assessment and Communication for People with Disorders of Consciousness
Published on: August 1, 2017
The assessment of consciousness during partial seizures
Fizzah Ali1, Hugh Rickards, Andrea E Cavanna
1The Michael Trimble Neuropsychiatry Research Group, Department of Neuropsychiatry, University of Birmingham and BSMHFT, Birmingham, UK.
Abstract:
A wide range of controversial definitions and dynamic components surround the multi-dimensional concept of consciousness, with important reflections on the phenomenological description of ictal states relevant to epileptic seizures. The inadequacies of terminology, the insufficient emphasis on the subjective nature of consciousness, as well as the intrinsic limitations of the simple versus complex dichotomy for partial seizures, are to be considered in view of a modern definition of consciousness. In this paper, we review the difficulties encountered by clinicians in assessing the ictal conscious state in patients with epilepsy, and illustrate how a more sophisticated bi-dimensional model of consciousness can prove a valuable conceptual tool for the clinical assessment of ictal consciousness and the categorization of seizures.
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