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.
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.