Investigating the frequency of causes of seizures in emergency department patients in the age groups of youth, middle-aged and elderly: a retrospective study

Abstract

Seizures are one of the most common neurological diseases that affect people of all ages and ethnicities. Knowing the prevalence and basic causes of seizures in different age groups is very important for better management and more accurate decisions. Although drug therapy in epilepsy has been associated with seizure control in 60-70% of people, the quality of life of epileptic patients continues to decline and these people suffer from increased premature mortality without seizure-free periods. Therefore, with the help of the results of this study, it is possible to find the cause of the population of patients who have seizures in different age groups, and try to control and manage it according to the common causes in each age group, and the amount of individual expenses and the health system. Reduced. Methods. In this retrospective cross-sectional study, data were first extracted from the population referring to the emergency room with complaints of seizures from 2019 to 2021. All the patients who came to the emergency department of Imam Reza (AS) hospital with a complaint of convulsions during the years 2018 to 2019 were included in the study. Data were extracted from hospital records, and patients under 18 years of age were excluded from the study. Findings. In our study, we observed that among the patients in the age group of 18-39 years, the history of previous seizure was the most common, followed by head trauma, history of brain problems, history of coma, hypoglycemia, history of craniotomy, and stroke. In the age group of 40 to 65 years, the history of previous seizures was the highest, followed by history of brain problems, head trauma, history of stroke, history of coma, and history of craniotomy. Among patients over 65 years of age, the first cause was history of previous seizures, followed by history of stroke, history of brain problems, history of coma, history of head trauma, and hypoglycemia, respectively.