This chapter explores how a Neurologist treated a patient who was referred by a neuropediatric hospital with a diagnosis of generalized epilepsy, which had probably started in infancy with absence seizures. Moderate intellectual disability had also been noticed at that time. In her early adolescence, she started to present with generalized tonic-clonic seizures (GTCS), which were not preceded by any aura. She became seizure-free with a combination of antiepileptic medication. However, one year before the patient’s first consultation in the Neurologist’s office, her seizures had recurred, but the seizure semiology had changed: she would call her father and report vertigo and headache before seeming to loose consciousness. In a consultation without her parents, the patient told the Neurologist how she struggled with the responsibility of being independent of her parents. In this respect, it is interesting to note that the patient regularly experienced an absence seizure on days when aspects of her first vacation with her friends (and without her parents) were discussed in the family.
11 REM sleep impairment is reverted by absence-seizure treatment in a SYNGAP1 haploinsufficiency rat model of autism and intellectual disability
