Level IV, retrospective case series.

SUMMARYPurpose: To examine the risk of undergoing an epileptic seizure as a function of differing levels of occupational stress (physical and mental) in new military recruits with no previous history of epilepsy or with epilepsy in remission for over 2 years. Methods: The medical records of over 300,000 18-year-old men recruited to the Israeli army between mid-eighties and mid-nineties were used to assemble a cohort, which was followed for a period of 30 months. The severity of epilepsy at recruitment was determined according to four categories, 0 (no history of seizures) and 1-3 (history of seizures with different relapse-free periods, with or without treatment). The soldiers were subdivided according to their occupational categories to: combat units (CU), maintenance units (MU), and administrative units (AU). The prevalence of epilepsy is 0.5-1% worldwide, with the highest incidence occurring in early childhood and late adulthood (Hauser et al., 1991). Studies on the risk for recurrent seizures show that between 27% and 81% of patients will suffer a second seizure within 3-5 years (Shinnar et al Results

No abstract

No abstract