Clinical aspects of seizures in the elderly

The population of France and the world is aging with an increase in the population of people aged over 65 years old. Old people are the second largest population affected by seizures. Hence, neurologists and geriatricians have to be able to identify and treat elderly that suffer from seizures. The current epileptic seizure classification is inappropriate for old people. It is difficult to identify seizures in this group of patients for many reasons and some semiological particularities are required to establish a diagnostic. Within the elderly, first generalized seizures are rare except when epilepsy begins in childhood. The most common type of epilepsy in the elderly is partial seizure but in most cases, the beginning of seizure is difficult to analyze. Seizures clinical description depends on functional areas concerned by the spread of the epileptic discharge. Keep in mind that most of functional areas are interconnected and because of the epileptic discharge speed, clinical expression is polymorph.