Neurodevelopmental evolution of West syndrome: A 2-year prospective study

A prospective longitudinal study on visuo-cognitive development in Dravet syndrome: Is there a “dorsal stream vulnerability”?

“…These findings appeared to suggest a possible predictive value of the impaired visual function towards cognitive decline, and different causative factors other than seizures. This is in keeping with previous studies also showing that the assessment of visual function in the first months of life, providing an evaluation of precognitive skills can predict subsequent cognitive development (Weisglas-Kuperus et al, 1993;Mercuri et al, 1999;Atkinson and Braddick, 2007;Guzzetta et al, 2008).…”

Cerebral Visual Impairment in Children

“…Interestingly, reduced visual acuity was most often found in children with quadriplegia and diplegia, while children with hemiplegia typically had normal visual acuity, but had the highest proportion of altered visual fi elds (Fazzi et al 2012 ). Guzzetta et al ( 2008 ) assessed both visual development and cognitive, motor and social development in a longitudinal study in 21 children suffering from West syndrome (a particular form of epilepsy, which can also occur after brain injury). Furthermore, motor problems in preterm children are associated with visual impairments, particularly low visual acuity (Evenson et al 2009 ).…”

Longer duration of epilepsy and earlier age at epilepsy onset correlate with impaired cognitive development in infancy

“…The limited evidence that does exist in this age group is derived from longitudinal studies assessing postinterventional neuropsychological outcome in infants with West syndrome [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12] and [13] and other epilepsies [5], [6], [7], [10], [11] and [14] (Table 1). Most of these studies have suggested that earlier surgical or medical therapy during infancy may provide higher benefit for intellectual development of children.…”