Eastern J Med. 2012; 17(1): 36-39

Landau-kleffner syndrome-A rare experience

Ramnath Santosh Ramanathan¹, Tina Ahluwalia², Ankush Sharma^2
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Landau Kleffner syndrome (LKS)/Acquired epileptic aphasia (AEA) typically develops in healthy children who acutely or progressively lose receptive and expressive language ability coincident with the appearance of paroxysmal EEG changes. In most cases described in detail, a clearly normal period of motor and language development occurs before LKS symptoms appear. The same was the case with our patient also. LKS should be differentiated from autism with minimal language regression, especially when it is associated with isolated EEG abnormalities. Currently LKS is considered as part of the syndrome of electrical status epilepticus of sleep (ESES) by many, which is also known as continuous spike and wave of slow-wave sleep (CSWS). We also have increasing evidence that the language disorder is directly caused by epileptic discharges in critical language areas which must be viewed as a special kind of epileptic aphasia. We present a case of 5-year-old child admitted with sudden loss of speech along with seizures in the form of staring look and classical EEG abnormalities of Landau Kleffner syndrome. We started our patients on high dose oral steroids following failure of intravenous immunoglobulin trial. There are small numbers of publications reviewing Landau-Kleffner syndrome in the literature hence making it one of those rarer entities.

Keywords: Landau Kleffner Syndrome, Acquired epileptic aphasia, seizures, Continuous spike and wave of slow wave sleep, Electrical status epilepticus of sleep.

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