The concept of consciousness remains unclear. The International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) defined consciousness as a degree of awareness and/or responsiveness of the patient to externally applied stimuli (ILAE, 1981).ILAE used this concept so far to divide partial seizures into simple partial seizures (without impairment of consciousness) and complex partial seizures (with impairment of consciousness). But the latest Classifications and Terminology of ILAE suppressed this distinction, arguing that it was impossible to accurately define consciousness (Berget al.,2010).However, the ILAE continues the use the concept consciousness as a criterion to describe different kinds of partial seizures, as Berg et al. (2010) state a little bit later: "Without impairment of consciousness or awareness: this roughly corresponds to the concept of simple partial seizure. With impairment of consciousness or awareness: this roughly corresponds to the concept of complex partial seizure."To overcome this contradiction it would be advisable to seek a more suitable solution to this problem.
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