Infantile, Childhood, and Adolescent Epilepsies

Infantile, childhood, and adolescent epilepsies comprise a diverse group of entities. Careful characterization of epilepsy into a specific electroclinical syndrome or etiology assists greatly in understanding both the natural history of the seizure disorder (pharmacoresistant versus pharmacoresponsive and self-limited versus lifelong) and the best therapeutic options for the child.

Tremendous growth has been seen in the understanding of both genetic factors predisposing to epilepsy and neuroimaging techniques. Additionally, a number of studies have focused on the efficacy of certain therapies in specific syndromes or etiologies.

This article reviews both common epilepsy syndromes (including benign focal epilepsy of childhood, absence epilepsy, and juvenile myoclonic epilepsy) and the rarer syndromes with associated management implications (eg, Dravet syndrome, progressive myoclonic epilepsy, and mitochondrial disorders) and addresses genetic and metabolic investigations.