Evaluation of Preschool Children with the Diagnosis of Non-epileptic Paroxysmal Disorders in a Pediatric Neurology Outpatient Clinic

Abstract

Objective: Recurrent non-epileptic disorders that differ according to age play an important role in the differential diagnosis of childhood epilepsy. The aim of this studywas to evaluate preschool children with recurrent non-epileptic paroxysmal disorders who were admitted to a pediatric neurology outpatient clinic.Methods: Seventy-five children younger than 6 years of age who were admitted to a pediatric neurology outpatient clinic between January 2017 and January 2018 dueto recurrent non-epileptic disorders were included in the study. The number of patients presenting with seizures and all other diagnoses were also recorded. Descriptivestatistical analyses and chi-square test were used as statistical methods.Results: Of the patients, 36 were female (48%) and 39 (52%) were male. The mean age was 22.5±17.2 months, with the youngest patient being 2 months and the oldestpatient being 69 months old. Sixteen different diagnoses were detected. The prevalance of the disorder among 1575 new patients was 4.7%. The two most commondiagnoses were breath-holding spells and gratification disorder. Of all patients, 29 patients (39%) had breath-holding spells and 46 (61%) had other diagnoses. Episodeduring examination happened most commonly in tic disorders, and least commonly in breath-holding spells and gratification disorder. The need for home videorecording for diagnosis was mostly in patients with gratification disorder. Episode during examination, and need for video recording, sleep electroencephalography andcranial magnetic resonance imaging were significantly lower in breath-holding spells compared with other diagnoses (p