Infants and children, those greater than a month old
or less than 12 years, the most common causes are
central nervous system infection, a variety of genetic disorders, Febrile
seizures which by the way is a topic in itself.
You'll, you should read up on that on your own.
But a, but a very, very common form of
seizures that is generally, fortunately benign but extremely common.
And then head trauma.
For adolescents the list again CNS infections, genetic disorders, trauma.
Now brain tumor's become more of a concern and illicit drug use.
For adults, trauma, brain tumor, drug use, and alcohol withdrawal.
And for older adults: metabolic disturbances, brain tumor, alcohol
withdrawal, cerebrovascular disease, and
Alzheimer's and other degenerative diseases.
So in the evaluation of this patient who comes in with a first time seizure,
one needs to think about all of these
various causes associated with the particular age category.
Because your diagnostic workup on potential treatment should of
course be focused on any identifiable underlying disorder.
So having considered these potential causes, now let's talk
about what the actual laboratory workup would be.
Well, it's, it's focused on trying to see whether we can identify
any of the things that we just saw on the previous slide.
So typically we'll get a panel of blood studies, which
will include a CBC, electrolytes, glucose, liver and renal function tests.
You can consider an sed rate a tox screen, certainly for, for
the age, any of the age ranges that you think it's appropriate.
And pregnancy test. And again, this is simply.
A survey to try and identify any evidence for