Seizures: Medical Causes and Management Hardback - 2001

An epileptic seizure may be defined as a discrete spontaneous alteration in behavior or a subjective experience occurring due to an abnormal hypersynchronous excessive discharge of a collection of neurons within the brain.

Although seizures are among the most common medical conditions, the literature on their medical causes and their management is often chaotic, fragmentary, and widely dispersed among a variety of medical specialties. In Seizures: Medical Causes and Management, Norman Delanty addresses this problem by bringing together an authoritative panel of practicing physicians to describe the circumstances under which seizures develop in a broad spectrum of conditions, how to recognize their potentially life-threatening complications, and how they may be effectively treated within their disease contexts. Comprehensive discussions cover seizures caused by organ failure, electrolyte imbalance, and endocrine disorders, and range to those associated with cardiorespiratory disorders, hypertension, and organ transplantation. The authors also fully review seizures caused by fever and systemic infection, medication, alcohol, illicit drug use, and environmental toxins, as well as seizures in cancer patients. Further chapters examine such important topics as seizure in the intensive care unit, symptomatic status elipticus, differential diagnosis between seizure and syncope, and the use of anticonvulsants in systemically sick patients.
Broad ranging and relevant across many medical specialties, Seizures: Medical Causes and Management illuminates for today's neurologist, primary care physician, and specialist in a wide variety of medical disorders the causes and optimal management of seizures, creating along the way a "must have" reference for almost anyone practicing medicine.