[Comments on diagnostic problems and procedures in certifying the ability of epileptic patients to drive motor vehicles based on published articles and our own cases].

Epileptic seizures prevent the affected persons, partly or completely, from performing certain occupational tasks. Due to their widely differentiated etiology, seizures and related conditions pose a serious diagnostic and certification problem. Epilepsy is thought to be one of the essential contraindication for driving a vehicle. The aim of this work was to analyze current diagnostic and certification problems and the procedures used to determine the ability of drivers to run motor vehicles on public roads. The nature of seizures, their frequency, circumstances in which they occur, the results of neurological and EEG tests and, in some cases, the results of neuroimaging tests were taken into account when diagnosing clinical epilepsy. The conditions most commonly mistaken for epileptic seizures are syncope, transient ischemic attack (TIA) and non-epileptic psychogenic seizures. There is a tendency toward a greater liberalization of driving standards for people with epilepsy. The certification procedure in cases of epilepsy should not be schematic; careful examination of each individual case is required before judging a driver's ability to run motor vehicles on public roads.