The theme of death in complex partial seizures.

The theme of death highlighted the depersonalization phenomena of four patients with complex partial seizures. These patients became preoccupied with death in association with psychomotor seizures, visual hallucinations, and altered perception of time and reality. The episodic sense of being dead or of having an appointment with death is a clue to the diagnosis of recurrent complex partial seizures even without overt motor stigmata of seizures. The syndrome differs from fear of death, steroid psychosis, the "near death syndrome," and Cotard's syndrome. Adjustment of antiseizure medication is an important therapeutic maneuver.