ABSTRACT
Accurate classification of seizures is critical to a physiological understanding of epileptic phenomena; to rational prescribing practices that base selection of antiepileptic drugs, in part, on accurate diagnosis of seizure type; and to scientific investigations that require delineation of clinical and electroencephalographic phenotypes. Jackson’s observations that brain lesions could cause “uncinate fits” or the focal motor seizures which later bore his name also led him to consider seizure classifications based upon anatomical and pathological issues in addition to clinical phenomenology. Confusing epileptic seizures with the condition of epilepsy has fostered imprecise terminology and clinical inexactitudes. Seizures are discrete epileptic events, the manifestations of transient, hypersynchronous, abnormal neuronal behavior. The initial events of a seizure, either described by the patient or an observer, are usually the most reliable clinical indication of whether a seizure begins focally or is generalized from the beginning.
