Todd's paresis

The Todd'sche (or toddsche ) Paralysis (syn: Todd'sche paresis, epileptic hemiplegia, epileptic paralysis, postictal paresis ) is a temporary paralysis of publication and is a postictal changes.

It occurs after focal (or partial) on seizures that the motor cortex of the frontal lobe co-involve (motor focal seizures ). In these it is forced by electrical discharges in the part of the brain that is responsible for movement control, circumscribed, and usually limited to one side of the body muscle twitching. After such an attack, a persistent weakness of the corresponding body sections ( postictal paresis ) can be observed in about 13 % of cases. You can rarely also last minutes to hours, several days. Even after generalized seizures (grand mal ) such postictal paresis were observed.

The cause is unknown; a specific treatment is necessary. It is however important diagnostic differentiation from ischemic stroke.

It is named this phenomenon by the physician Robert Bentley Todd (1809 - 1860), who described it in an article in the " Lumleian Lectures" of 1849. Detailed he went to the phenomenon of epileptic hemiplegia in his " Clinical Lectures of paralysis " of 1855.

Literature and sources

• Epilepsy