New article highlight: “Quality of life and psychological dysfunction in traumatized and non-traumatized patients with PNES”

In March, our summer intern, Nadine Boesten, together with her supervisors Ben Wijnen and Lorna Myers published an article with the following title: “Quality of life and psychological dysfunction in traumatized and nontraumatized patients with psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES).” This study aimed to examine whether there are distinct subgroups within those who have psychogenic non-epileptic seizures...

What term do YOU prefer to use when naming your health condition (AKA psychogenic non-epileptic seizures) or talking about your symptoms with others?

Late last year, we posted a survey on the homepage of www.nonepilepticseizures.com that addresses the age-old question: what should we call these particular non-epileptic episodes?  The difference in this blog post is that we will hear from non-professional survey voters and not just the researchers. If you have followed this blog, you might recall that in the past, I have written about what professionals think...

“‘dis-sociated’ – The first ever feature documentary on PNES

I’m Clea, the director, producer and editor of dis-sociated, the first feature-length documentary about Dissociative Seizures which is now available to watch on YouTube: I was inspired to create this documentary after my friend developed mysterious absence-like seizures, which doctors were unable to explain or prevent. Once my friend finally received a diagnosis, her life had fallen apart due to her seizures. She...

The International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) features an article about psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES)

There is one thing we can be sure of: if we are going to be successful in disseminating information and educating the public (professional and general) about PNES, we need to make sure it is reported on and written about in as many publications and venues as possible. So, imagine my satisfaction in reading and sharing the most recent article that has come out in the ILAE epigraph. Why is this important? Well,...

New article compares patients with psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) to patients with intractable partial epilepsy on trauma, somatization and dissociation

This month, several colleagues at the Northeast Regional Epilepsy Group published a new article: “Psychological trauma, somatization, dissociation, and psychiatric comorbidities in patients with psychogenic nonepileptic seizures compared with those in patients with intractable partial epilepsy.” The initial aim of the project was to better understand psychological trauma in PNES and in persons with epilepsy...