What Is a Petite Seizure?

A petit mal or petit seizure is also called an absence seizure and is characterized by brief episodes of unresponsive staring. With two or more seizure incidents, a person is considered to have epilepsy.

Considerations

• This type of seizure usually affects children between the ages of 4 and 12 and stops in late teen years or early 20s.

Identification

• Each seizure lasts 15 seconds or less without an aura or warning and ends without confusion as is typical of some other types of seizures.

Symptoms

• Afflicted children stop in midsentence or mid-step and then stare into space, unaware and unable to respond. Many children begin talking where they left off without realizing anything happened and have no memory of the event. Sometimes the episodes include eye fluttering, lip smacking or chewing.

Causes

• Although the cause of most types of epilepsy is usually not identified, brain electrical activity is altered. In a petit mal seizure, nerve signals in the brain form an unusual repeating pattern every three seconds for the duration of the seizure.

Significance

• Experiencing 50 or more absence seizures per day in not uncommon and may interfere with learning. Although most outgrow them, some children later develop tonic-clonic seizures. This type of seizure is characterized by a loss of consciousness followed by stiffening and jerking of muscles.

Treatment

• Anti-seizure medications promise the best control for seizures, but a patient must often try several before finding the right one or combination. Children will need to stay on medication until seizure free for at least two years.