Authors :
Miguel Arevalo-Astrada, MD, CSCN (EEG) – The Ottawa Hospital
Presenting Author: Tadeu Fantaneanu, MDCM, CSCN (EEG), FRCPC – The Ottawa Hospital
Arezoo Rezazadeh, MD, CSCN (EEG) – The Ottawa Hospital
Paulina Kyriakopoulos, MDCM, CSCN (EEG), FRCPC – The Ottawa Hospital
Rationale:
To analyze the lateralizing value of shoulder dislocation in seizure semiology of patients with focal epilepsy.Methods:
We retrospectively reviewed the chart of patients with shoulder dislocation secondary to seizures who were seen at our institution from April 1, 2002 to October 15, 2023.Results:
A total of 87 patients met the inclusion criteria. Forty-four (50.6%) had generalized epilepsy with tonic-clonic seizures, 22 (25.3%) had focal epilepsy, and 21 (24.1%) had epilepsy with unknown onset tonic-clonic seizures. Of the 22 patients who had focal epilepsy, 20 (91%) had contralateral shoulder dislocation (95% CI [71-99%]).Conclusions:
We found that shoulder dislocations were more common in patients with generalized compared to focal epilepsy. More important, most patients with focal epilepsy had contralateral shoulder dislocation. We think that this can serve as a novel lateralizing sign during the presurgical workup for epilepsy.
Funding: None