Epilepsy in adulthood and elderly, clinical and laboratory study

The remarkable increase in seizure onset at adulthood and elderly provokes the interest to understand not only the extent of the problem but also its clinical presentations, etiology and possible biochemical indices and oxidant parameters. For these reasons, all epileptic patients with onset at or after 40 years of age-attending the out clinics of neuropsychiatry in Assiut University Hospital within one year were fully evaluated clinically, radiologically, [especially CT scan] and biochemically [lipogram and oxidant stress]. Prevalence of epilepsy in specific age group [40 years and more] was 11/1000. Most of the patients were of low social strata and 27.3% had consanguineous marriage between parents. Generalized convulsion represents 75.6%, while partial seizures represent 18.2%. Stroke represented the most frequent etiology [60.6%] of epilepsy in this age group, followed by tumors [18.2%]. Variable% of patients with epilepsy in elderly had abnormal changes in lipids, lipoproteins and oxidant stress

Ischemic stroke in young adults clinical and laboratory study

This work was carried out on 37 patients with ischemic stroke of both sex, within one week from the onset, with age ranged from 17- 44 years and a mean age of 30.3 +/- 7.5. A lot of investigations were carried out for patients included in this study as well as 12 age matched control subjects. This study clarified that ischemic stroke in this age period is more common among females than males with female to male ratio 3.1: 1. Meanwhile, the most common risk factors for ischemic stroke in young adults in this community are positive family history of certain diseases [as hypertension, stroke, diabetes.etc], history of abortion and cardiac diseases. However, laboratory investigations revealed that positive anticardiolipin antibodies [ACLA] IgM are present in 31%, protein S deficiency in 24.2%, protein C deficiency in 21.2% and lastly anticardiolipin antibody IgG in 2.9% only