[Epilepsy and sleep].

Epilepsy and sleep are intricately associated. Influences of epilepsy on sleep as a result of drug treatment and the vigilance altering effects thereof as well as the temporal distribution and presentation of seizures are considered. The effect of sleep quality on seizure frequency is well known and must play a part in the management of patients with epilepsy. A careful scrutiny of potential sleep disturbing factors such as primary sleep disorders is equally important to the successful management of seizure frequency and of excessive daytime somnolence, which may be a confounding comorbidity in this patient population. The occasionally difficult differential diagnosis of epilepsy and parasomnias is a field in which an interdisciplinary approach between epileptologists and sleep specialists is necessary, video-EEG-polysomnography being an indispensable diagnostic instrument.