Psychogenic Non Epileptic Seizures Information
What goes into making the diagnosis of PNES?
• Making a diagnosis of PNES is a task that is daunting to some "greener" clinicians and even doctors with solid training and experience in epilepsy may feel uncertain when trying to confirm this disorder. Just imagine the pressure: if the doctor diagnoses someone with PNES when in fact they have epileptic seizures and proceeds to remove anti epileptic drugs and to send the patient out of the epilepsy center, this could seriously endanger the patient's well being.
• Similarly, if a diagnosis of PNES is missed, the patient may be subjected to years of treatment with powerful drugs that were unnecessary and will have gone all that time in a limbo state.
• Clinicians who deal with epilepsy patients on a daily basis quickly realize the wide spectrum of clinical presentations of seizures and learn to take great care with the diagnostic process.
