A clinical and epidemiological study of adult patients with epilepsy

The clinical and epidemiological data of 1054 patients with epilepsy between the ages of 16 and 66 years are described. 70% of the patients were treated in neurological departments, 20% by their general practitioners, while 8% received no treatment. The age-specific prevalence was 430 per 100 000 inhabitants, the same for men and women. Hereditary epilepsies (pyknoleptic absences, juvenile myoclonic epilepsy, epilepsy with awakening grand mal) comprised 16% of all the epilepsies; epilepsies with clinical primary generalized grand mal seizures as the only seizure type 32%, epilepsies with complex partial seizures 25% and epilepsies with simple partial seizures 18%. 8% could not be classified.