IntroductionLithium is well known for its therapeutic effect in affective psychosis. The side effects are peculiar and the mode of action is not well understood. The most serious side effect is the induction of the clinical and EEG picture of diffuse encephalopathy. A case of deep coma has been reported with serium lithium of 1.76 mEq/L and cerebrospinal fluid level of 0.90 mEq/L,l .The effect of lithium in epilepsy is still debatable. Jus et al. 2 had randomly selected eight temporal lobe epileptics. The patients were kept on the traditional antiepileptic medications and lithium was added. It was concluded, that, "because the number of seizures increased in three patients, the behavior became impaired in four and the EEG pathology was augmented in five, the treatment was interrupted about two weeks following the administration of 600 mg. of lithium carbonate". The opposite conclusion was drawn by Erwin et al.: 3 , who tried lithium on 17 epileptics. Nine patients showed reduced discharge rate, seven patients did not change and one patient had an increase in frequency of EEG seizure activity, Gershon and Yurnllenreported, that, of 49 epileptics treated with lithium, 60% showed a decrease in seizure frequency. Others implicate lithium in the onset of status epilepticus in nonepileptic patients, when the lithium was used within the therapeutic range 5,6.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.