Understanding Pediatric Epilepsy: Types of Pediatric Epilepsy

What is an Epilepsy Syndrome?

An epilepsy syndrome is defined by a combination of medical features usually occurring together, or by the location in the brain where the seizure begins. Epilepsy syndromes affect infants, children and youth. Types of seizures, the age seizures start, EEG patterns and other prognostic information allow physicians to make a diagnosis of a specific epilepsy syndrome. It is important to recognize the epilepsy syndrome to understand how to care for children and youth with epilepsy. With a diagnosis of an epilepsy syndrome, appropriate treatment and a plan of care can be better identified. Furthermore, understanding the kind of epilepsy syndrome a patient has may help the physician to predict whether the seizures will go into remission or may be outgrown by adulthood.

Types of Epilepsy Syndromes

The Epilepsy Foundation provides detailed information about the epilepsy syndromes listed below:

• Childhood Absence Epilepsy
• Childhood Epilepsy with Centrotemporal Spikes (formerly called Benign Rolandic Epilepsy)
• Doose Syndrome (Myoclonic Atonic Epilepsy)
• Dravet Syndrome
• Early Myoclonic Encephalopathy (EME)
• Epilepsy in Infancy with Migrating Focal Seizures
• Epilepsy with Eyelid Myoclonia (Jeavons Syndrome)
• Epilepsy with Generalized Tonic-Clonic Seizures Alone
• Epilepsy with Myoclonic-Absences
• Epileptic Encephalopathy with Continuous Spike and Wave during Sleep (CSWS)
• FIRES: Febrile Illness-related Epilepsy Syndrome
• Genetic Epilepsy with Febrile Seizures Plus
• Infantile Spasms (West Syndrome)
• Juvenile Absence Epilepsy
• Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy
• Landau-Kleffner Syndrome
• Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome (LGS)
• Myoclonic Epilepsy of Infancy
• Ohtahara Syndrome
• Panayiotopoulos Syndrome
• Progressive Myoclonic Epilepsies
• Reflex Epilepsies
• Self-Limited Familial and Non-Familial Neonatal-Infantile Seizures
• Sleep-related Hypermotor Epilepsy (SHE)
• Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

Additional Resources

For more details, check out these helpful resources:

• Epilepsy Foundation: Types of Epilepsy Syndromes
• Epilepsy Society: Childhood Epilepsy Syndromes
• Johns Hopkins Medicine: Epilepsy Syndromes in Children