Psychopathology of posttraumatic epilepsy in the light of personal clinical observation

The authors present the result of psychopathological analysis of a group of 91 patients who suffered from epileptic seizures of definitely or probably established posttraumatic etiology. Mental disturbances in these patients were differentiated into sporadic psychopathological phenomena and chronic psychiatric syndromes. Sporadic episodes, which the authors identify with "psychical seizures", concerned 58 patients. They were manifested by psychomotor or psychosensory seizures, dismnesia and disthymia. Chronic psycho-organic syndromes were diagnosed in 85 patients. They were: dementive, characteropathic, dementive-characteropathic, oligophrenic and temporal lobe syndrome (according to Landolt). Psychopathological picture of posstraumatic epilepsy does not appear to be specific for the etiological factor. The relatively high number of patients with partial seizures of mixed symptomatology may indicate that head traumas frequently damage the limbic structures of the brain. Confirmed is the observation of other authors that there is a correlation between the temporal localization of epileptic focus and character disturbances.