Question
What are the sequelae of epilepsy? A relative’s child won’t talk, and they are now 5 years old. Their speech is unclear. They have had epilepsy since shortly after birth, and it’s not clear if this is due to the illness’s interference.
Answer
Epilepsy itself generally does not have special sequelae, except for trauma or brain hypoxia during severe repeated seizures or status epilepticus. Issues like unclear speech or the inability to speak, intellectual regression, and dementia are often not the result of epilepsy itself but are caused by the same underlying cause as epilepsy. A child who experiences epilepsy soon after birth and has had it for 5 years now, with speech difficulties and unclear language, may also have varying degrees of intellectual disability. It should be believed first that there might have been issues such as aspiration pneumonia, intrauterine respiratory distress, or birth injuries during childbirth, which triggered epilepsy and associated language and intellectual problems, rather than sequelae of epilepsy causing language disorders.