Drop attacks

An ominous change in the evolution of partial epilepsy

Pazzaglia, Paolo MD
D'Alessandro, Roberto MD
Ambrosetto, Giovanni MD
Lugaresi, Elio MD

From the Institute of Clinical Neurology, University of Bologna, Italy.

Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Pazzaglia, Istituto di Clinica Neurologica, Università di Bologna, Via Ugo Foscolo 7, 40123 Bologna, Italy.

Accepted for publication March 18, 1985.

Neurology 35(12):p 1725-1730, December 1985.

Article abstract

We studied 16 patients with partial epilepsy and drop attacks. The drop attacks appeared 1 to 29 years after onset of epilepsy; 15 patients had these attacks weekly or daily, despite therapy. After the appearance of drop attacks, 6 patients had severe mental disorders, and social life was disrupted in 13. There was a high rate of adversive seizures, atypical absences, and diffuse spike-wave discharges in the EEG, electroclinical features that suggest a frontal origin of epilepsy. Drop attacks are ominous because they occur so frequently, resist therapy, are physically dangerous, and portend personality change.