One in four people who are tested for epilepsy do not have the disease but instead have a psychological condition called psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES). Today in the prestigious journal, Neurology, Monash researchers describe the disease, which if undetected can be deadly.
About 25 per cent of people who are admitted to hospital for an epilepsy evaluation because they are experiencing uncontrolled seizures do not have the disease. Instead what they have is psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES), which manifests with what appear to be epileptic seizures and actually have a psychological rather than a neurological basis, with the patients often having a history of early life abuse.
New research also reveals patients with PNES have an almost three times increased risk of dying – and for people aged under 30 years this risk is approximately 8 times higher.
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