Sleep-onset epilepsy usually refers to epileptic electrical status epilepticus during sleep, and its severity is related to its specific type, some of which can seriously affect the patient’s health if not treated in time.
Common types of this disorder include epileptic encephalopathy with persistent slow waves in sleep, acquired epileptic aphasia syndrome, and benign childhood epilepsy with central temporal spikes.
Epileptic encephalopathy with persistent spikes and slow waves in sleep has a prevalence of about 0.5%, starts at 6-14 years of age, is often combined with severe seizures, and responds poorly to medications. Multifaceted intellectual decline and impaired speech may occur.
Acquired epileptic aphasia syndrome, which accounts for about 0.2% of patients with epilepsy. It starts at the age of 3 to 9 years and is typically characterized by a sudden inability of healthy children to recognize speech and environmental sounds, such as the ringing of the telephone, and may be further characterized by abnormalities in speech expression and intelligence and behavior.
Seizures are comorbid in 70% of children, but are usually well treated with medication. The duration of the disease affects the ultimate prognosis of the child, and patients who have had the disease for more than 3 years often do not have complete recovery of language function.
Benign epilepsy with central temporal spikes in children is the most common epilepsy syndrome in childhood, accounting for 15% to 24% of childhood epilepsy. The age of onset is 3 to 10 years, and seizure control with medication is effective. However, there may be impaired speech and oropharyngeal motor function, and they lag behind healthy children in vocabulary reception and expression, word definitions, grammar, and verbal fluency.
If sleep-onset epilepsy is suspected, it should be promptly examined in a hospital and treated aggressively after diagnosis, and medications should be used under the guidance of a physician.