Adult Focal Epilepsies

Focal epilepsy is the most common type of epilepsy in adulthood. This article discusses the seizure symptomatology, EEG findings, and imaging findings of the various forms of focal epilepsy. The majority of the article focuses on temporal and frontal lobe epilepsy as these represent the majority of focal epilepsies.

While significant overlap exists in the clinical symptomatology of the focal epilepsies, detailed seizure descriptions can often provide useful clinical evidence to help establish an accurate diagnosis. EEG and MRI continue to serve as the main diagnostic tools for the diagnosis of focal epilepsy.

The various forms of focal epilepsy generate seizure presentations that are dependent on the anatomic structures that are involved in the seizure. By understanding the symptoms typically generated in each region of the brain, a better understanding of the possible seizure localizations can be made. Most forms of epilepsy have clear changes on EEG that permit accurate localization, but several pitfalls exist, which are discussed in this article. Imaging has revolutionized our ability to accurately identify lesions associated with epilepsy and increased our ability to localize seizures in the brain.