Mindfulness and psychogenic non epileptic seizures

I was reading a few books by Dr. Kabat-Zinn, Director of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.  He reports how useful mindfulness is when working with medically ill patients who are in excrutiating pain. I was intrigued by the concept of mindfulness and surprised by the similarities between it and the Western treatment approach I use with psychogenic non epileptic...

Talking about psychogenic non epileptic seizures in Guadalajara, Mexico

Last week, I was invited to the Third International Neuropsychology conference in Guadalajara on Rehabilitation and Epilepsy. It gave me a wonderful opportunity to talk about a little known condition that is actually quite common in epilepsy centers: psychogenic non epileptic seizures.  The conference had drawn 500 attendees (psychology students, neuropsychologists and neurologists from all over Latin America). The...

Video EEG monitoring: the “Gold Standard” when diagnosing psychogenic (psychological) non epileptic seizures

Can someone tell if the difference between a PNES spell and an epileptic seizure (ES) just by looking at the spell itself?  Answer: NO What is Video EEG Telemetry and how is it useful to make a PNES diagnosis? Newer technology allows doctors to monitor electrical activity in the patient’s brain during epileptic events.  In order to do this, 10-20 cables are attached (with special adhesives) to the patient’s...

The connection between Psychological (Psychogenic) non epileptic seizures and a history of trauma

How many people with PNES have a history of trauma? An interesting article was published in the Journal Epilepsy and Behavior ( 2004) by Fiszman et.  al. It reviewed 17 PNES studies and found that traumatic events and PTSD in persons with PNES were very common.  Depending on the study: 44-100% of PNES patients had suffered some form of general trauma and 23-77% had a history of physical or sexual abuse.  What is...