Cursive and gelastic epilepsy: probable sequelae of physical abuse

Abstract

SummaryAn abandoned 8-year-old male child, who was subjected to physical abuse, presented with abnormal behaviour and focal seizures. The focal seizures included involuntary running attacks (epilepsia cursiva) and uncontrollable laughter (gelastic epilepsy).The occurrence of cursive and gelastic seizures in the same patient is extremely rare. These fits were probably a late sequel of head trauma. IntroductionEpisodic attacks of running and uncontrollable laughter, in persons with disturbed consciousness, are recognized as rare epileptic manifestations and are called cursive seizures (Sisler, Levy and Roseman, 1953) and gelastic epilepsy (Daly and Mulder, 1957) respectively. Chen and Forster (1973) found that only 0 32% of their seizure population had either gelastic or cursive fits. It was extremely rare for both seizures to occur in the same patient. In battered children sustaining head injuries, 1-5% develop post-traumatic seizures (Till, 1975). A child is now described who was battered, and manifested both gelastic and cursive seizures which were a probable late sequel of head trauma.