Emma Denlinger

Ms. Lerner
Intern/Mentor GT
27 October 2016
Works Cited
"Cognitive Impairment Is Not Equal in Patients with Epileptic and Psychogenic Nonepileptic
Seizures." National Center for Biotechnology Information. U.S. National Library of
Medicine, n.d. Web. 27 Oct. 2016.
I mainly found this website article for more background information and out of sheer curiosity.
Due to my curiosity in the topic, the question of the relationship between cognitive impairments
and nonepileptic seizures came into mind. This article provided information that answered this
question. According to this study, patients with nonepileptic often do not put forth full effort in
cognitive tests, which may make it seem as if they are more cognitively impaired when they are
actually of normal cognitive ability. I found this fascinating, because this seems to suggest a
psychosomatic element to these seizures. I have been recently intrigued by the thought that a
placebo treatment could help treat seizures like these effectively, and the results from this study
seem to support this idea.
"VM -- The Ethics of Diagnosing Nonepileptic Seizures with Placebo Infusion, Nov 10 ... Virtual
Mentor." VM -- The Ethics of Diagnosing Nonepileptic Seizures with Placebo Infusion,
Nov 10 ... Virtual Mentor. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Oct. 2016.
Lately I have been intrigued by the idea of using a placebo treatment for nonepileptic seizures, so
I decided to do more thorough research on this topic. This website article is a report on a study
that was done on the effect of a placebo on the instigation of a nonepileptic seizure. The studies

found that when a placebo saline solution that would bring on a seizures was given to patients
with both epilepsy and nonepileptic seizures, the patients with nonepileptic seizures tended to
have more seizures instigated. This seems to imply that there is a suggestibility to these seizures,
and that a placebo treatment could be promising.