[Evaluation of the Mental State of Children with Early-childhood Onset of Epilepsy Treated Between 1977 and 1981 (preliminary Report)]

From a group of 248 cases of epilepsy observed in the last five years 69 (28%) children, 32 boys and 37 girls, were isolated (aged from several months to 14 years) in whom the first epileptic seizures appeared at the age of 3 years or less. The subgroups were subjected to detailed psychiatric-psychological analysis for establishing whether epilepsy beginning in the life period of the most intense developmental processes may have any decisive influence on the psychic development and social adaptation of the child. It was found that children with epilepsy beginning at the age below 3 years require not only a careful differential diagnosis but even more a comprehensive therapeutic management, which should include, besides systematic administration of drugs and periodic EEG control also a continuous psychological and psychiatric supervision and care which would ensure a possibly optimal development of mental skills and social adaptation in the family and outside it.