Good books for parents of children with seizures are hard to come by. This new volume fills a much-needed gap. Written by two pediatric neurologists and a clinic coordinator—counselor from the Pediatric Epilepsy Center at The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions (Baltimore, Md), the book addresses both the medical facts about seizure disorders and the fears and concerns of parents.
The book is divided into five parts: why seizures occur; diagnosing and treating seizures and epilepsy; treating seizures and epilepsy; coping with epilepsy; and living with epilepsy. Using clinical examples, tables, and illustrations, the areas are clearly and matter-of-factly reviewed. The "new" and "old" systems of classification of epilepsy are included, as well as simplified neuroanatomy and sample electroencephalograms. Because I agree strongly, I was delighted to see the authors state, "It is not necessary to do a CT or MRI scan on every child who has had a first seizure"