Epilepsies with partial seizures in childhood

Individual seizures are described as either partial (localization related) or generalized depending on whether a localized area of cerebral cortex is symptomatically involved sufficient to impart to the seizure a focal signature or whether sufficient cortex is involved sufficiently rapidly to appear as if generalized from the outset. This distinction is of some diagnostic and therapeutic importance. However, it has become evident that the prognosis of the patient's epilepsy is less a function of the seizure type than it is of the etiology and of the nature of the syndrome that the seizures represent. This approach is stressed in this chapter as is the regret that there is frequently a delay in the acknowledgment of the usefulness of a new drug in childhood epilepsies, as exemplified by lamotrigine.