The Absence Seizure

Rating: Highly recommended

Review date: Jan. 1974

Reviewer: Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC)

Learning method: Support

The purpose of this program is to "present a comprehensive view of the absence seizure for practicing physicians and clinical investigators." A three camera technique is used to demonstrate the clinical course of the seizures. One camera focuses on the body, another on the channel of the electroencephalogram while the third provides a closeup of the face, for a brief period before, during, and after the seizure. Most of the seizures are demonstrated in children and adolescents. All the patients whose seizures are recorded in this program have a history of absence seizures. These seizures have an abrupt onset and cessation. There are no aura, hallucations, focal sensory phenomena, gross focal clonic phenomena or massive spasms. Examples of the types of absence seizures illustrated in this program are as follows: absence simple no motion, absence with mild clonic component, absence with decreased postural tone, absence mixed. The program discusses in considerable detail the clinical manifestations of each seizure. The program concludes with a statistical analysis of the 374 seizures which occurred in forty-eight patients studied at the University of Virginia Hospital

Allied Health: undergraduate

Videocassette (Betacam SP)

Videodisc (DVD)