Abstracts

Impairment of consciousness following epileptic seizures is commonly seen. However, there is no research data on the duration of this period, or the factors which effect it. Impairment of consciousness following a seizure may be due to an underlying acute encephalopathy rather than a post-ictal phenomenon. Children aged 1-16 years attending the accident and emergency department, and in-patients who had suffered seizures involving impairment of consciousness, were studied. Hourly modified paediatric coma scores were performed, until a coma score of 15 was obtained. The Poisson regression model was used to determine which factors influence recovery time. One hundred and ten children were studied: 42 male, 68 female, median age was 6 years. Median time for full recovery of consciousness was 38 minutes (0.63 hours, range 0.05-17.0 hours). Median recovery time from febrile seizures was 18 minutes (0.3 hours, range 0.05-9.0 hours), which was significantly shorter than seizures of other aetiology (p[lt]0.05). Median recovery time from idiopathic seizures was 1.35 hours (range 0.07-13.13 hours), from remote symptomatic seizures was 1.25 hours (range 0.07-12.10 hours), and from acute symptomatic seizures was 4.57 hours (range 0.25-17.0 hours). Median recovery time following the use of benzodiazepines was 3.46 hours (range 0.08-14.25 hours), which was significantly longer for seizures not treated with benzodiazepines; median 0.47 hours (range 0.05-17.00 hours). Age, gender, number of seizures and type of seizure did not significantly affect recovery time. There was no significant correlation between recovery time and seizure duration. This results show that the majority of children suffering from febrile seizures recover within [frac12] hour. An acute symptomatic aetiology should be considered if recovery takes longer than 1 hour and warrants further investigation. Administration of emergency anti-epileptic drugs in the treatment of seizures has also been shown significantly prolong recovery and should be considered.