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Letter| Volume 16, ISSUE 2, P647-649, March 2023

Effectiveness of electroconvulsive therapy in Lance-Adams syndrome

  • Geoffroy Vellieux
    Affiliations
    Paris Brain Institute, ICM, Inserm, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, F-75013, Paris, France
    AP-HP, Epilepsy Unit, Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, Paris, France
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  • Emmanuelle Apartis
    Affiliations
    Paris Brain Institute, ICM, Inserm, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, F-75013, Paris, France
    AP-HP, Neurophysiology Department, Saint-Antoine Hospital, Paris, France
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  • Vincent Degos
    Affiliations
    AP-HP, Neurosurgical Intensive Care Unit, Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, Paris, France
    Clinical Research Group 29, Sorbonne Université, Paris, France
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  • Philippe Fossati
    Affiliations
    Paris Brain Institute, ICM, Inserm, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, F-75013, Paris, France
    AP-HP, Psychiatry Department, Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, Paris, France
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  • Vincent Navarro
    Correspondence
    Corresponding author. AP-HP, Epilepsy Unit, Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, 47 boulevard de l’Hôpital, 75013, Paris, France.
    Affiliations
    Paris Brain Institute, ICM, Inserm, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, F-75013, Paris, France
    AP-HP, Epilepsy Unit, Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, Paris, France
    Search for articles by this author
Open AccessPublished:March 17, 2023DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brs.2023.03.004
      Chronic posthypoxic myoclonus, or Lance-Adams syndrome (LAS), is a severely disabling consequence of anoxia [
      • Gupta H.V.
      • Caviness J.N.
      Post-hypoxic myoclonus: current concepts, neurophysiology, and treatment.
      ]. The leading symptoms of LAS are multifocal or sometimes generalized action/intention myoclonic jerks. LAS occurs days or weeks after a brain hypoxic event from various cardiac and/or respiratory origins. Its treatment relies on antiseizure medications (ASM) but without a clear efficacy. We report the striking features of a patient with LAS, refractory to many ASM, who presented generalized seizures leading to transient decrease of myoclonus. This patient benefited from repeated electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) to reproduce generalized seizures and to decrease her myoclonus, with a functional testing follow-up using the Unified Myoclonus Rating Scale (UMRS) [
      • Frucht S.J.
      • Leurgans S.U.
      • Hallett M.
      • Fahn S.
      The unified myoclonus rating Scale.
      ]. A written consent was signed by the patient for publication of her data.

      Keywords

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