Case history
Case history #1
A 45-year-old man is found unconscious in the street. He appears stiff, with continuously shaking extremities, foaming at the mouth, and urinary incontinence. On arrival to the emergency department, he has stopped shaking but is still unconscious. Stiffening and shaking resume a few minutes later. Two empty medication bottles are found in his pocket, labeled phenytoin and valproic acid.
Case history #2
A 15-year-old girl wakes up disoriented and confused. She remains still in bed, looking continuously around the room as if daydreaming. When asked about her strange behavior, she does not appear to understand and replies with unintelligible words. For the last 3 years, she has been having subtle early morning body jerks and has been told by her teachers that she frequently stares and seems inattentive in class.
Other presentations
SE can vary greatly in its clinical presentation. Patients may present with prolonged periods of confusion, disorientation, memory loss, or personality changes, with no other associated motor manifestations (focal impaired consciousness SE, formerly complex partial SE).[2] Patients may also present with repetitive contraction of a muscle, group of muscles, or an entire limb, with no change of consciousness, or rarely with only subjective changes or an isolated aphasia (focal SE, formerly simple partial SE).
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