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Childhood Absence Epilepsy (CAE)
Childhood absence epilepsy (CAE)
- Childhood absence epilepsy (CAE) typically begins between 4 to 8 years of age, affects girls more than boys, and can involve 100s of absence seizures in a day.
Absence seizures (aka petit mal seizures)
- Absence seizures manifest with a blank stare; patients appear to be daydreaming or zoning out.
- There may also be rhythmic facial movements or motor automatisms.
- Notably, there is no postictal confusion.
- These patients can be mistakenly diagnosed with a learning disability, as they present similar to an attentional disorder.
- In our slide, we show a child "daydreaming" or "staring off" in school, which is how these seizures manifest.
EEG
- EEG demonstrates runs of well-organized 3 Hz generalized high-voltage rhythmic spike-and-wave discharges.
Juvenile absence epilepsy (JAE)
- For reference, juvenile absence epilepsy (JAE) is another generalized epilepsy syndrome, which we can think of (albeit a simplification) as a mixture of childhood absence epilepsy and juvenile myoclonic epilepsy: it occurs at 9 – 13 years of age, and involves absence and myoclonic seizures that tend to occur shortly after awakening.