TEMPORAL LOBE EPILEPSY: A CLINICAL STUDY OF 47 CASES.

Clinical features of 47 cases of temporal lobe epilepsy are analyzed and treatment of this disorder is outlined. Twenty-four per cent of all cases of epilepsy seen by one of the authors over a two-year period were of this type. Fifteen of these 47 patients had a history of birth injury. Care must be taken to distinguish the symptoms of temporal lobe epilepsy from those of acute anxiety or hysteria and to differentiate the short-lived temporal lobe attack from centrencephalic petit mal.Interictal personality disturbances were identified in 11 of 24 persons with temporal lobe epilepsy, four of 35 with focal epilepsy from all other areas, and one of 17 with centrencephalic epilepsy. Personality deviations most frequently encountered were irritability, aggressiveness, bouts of depression, paranoid tendencies and exhibitionism. Medical or surgical treatment often improves the personality abnormalities concomitantly with control of seizures.