The television epilepsy is a rare clinical entity. Until 1964, 55 cases were reported in the European literatures and only 3 in the United States. This paper reports the first case of television epilepsy in Korea.
The patient, an eleven years and eight months old Korean girl was seen at the Severance hospital with chief complaint of two episodes of black out Spells while she was watching a television at a distance of approximately one meter six months and one months prior to the visit respectively. During each attack, the patient was unconscious for one to two minutes, and had profuse perspiration, tachycardia and small amount of salivation. She remained limp without any abnormal motor phenomena, and complained mild headache afterwards.
Past history was significant in that she had a similar black out spell at the age of six years, while she was sitting in a dark room beside her father who smoked a cigarette. Family history revealed that one of her paternal uncles had seizures as a child.
A routine physical and a neurological examination were nonrevealing, and serum calcium, phosphorus, and fasting blood sugar levels were within normal limits. An electroencephalogram demonstrated a typical photoconvulsive responses, which were most prominent at the flash frequency of 15 per second and appeared in lesser degree at 13/sec. and 2/sec. also. She was given a diagnosis of television epilepsy and ordered a protective glasses, and anticonvulsant medications.
The pertinent literatures were reviewed.
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