Psychogenic Seizure Imitating Narcolepsy

We describe a 55-year-old man with frequent brief and sudden sleep-like attacks in combination with nocturnal sleep disturbance. During attacks he was unresponsive, snoring but maintained posture. He resisted passive eye opening but with rolling eyes. The patient was confused on waking. In the interictal period, there were FND signs including give-way weakness of the left hand, typical functional “leg-dragging” gait, mistake in the finger-to-nose test. Video-electroencephalogram monitoring did not detect specific epileptic activity or sleep pattern during the attacks. Polysomnography showed multiple waking episodes during the night, but no typical pattern of narcolepsy was found in the m ultiple sleep latency test. The patient had frequent urgent hospitalizations due to different diseases and numerous invasive procedures. Six month later, the patient obtained state related disability financial benefit, after which hospitalizations in various hospitals continued, and PNES became shor ter and less pronounced.Case Rep Neurol 2020;12:472 –481
Source: Case Reports in Neurology - Category: Neurology Source Type: research