Absence Seizure

Absence seizures involve brief, sudden lapses of consciousness. They're more common in children than adults. Someone having an absence seizure may look like he or she is staring into space for a few seconds. This type of seizure usually doesn't lead to physical injury.

Typically, this type of seizure lasts between 10 and 30 seconds. The person, most often a child aged 5 to 15, abruptly stops whatever he's doing (talking, walking) and appears to "stare into space." Absence seizures rarely cause a true convulsion in which the person falls down or collapses. About a quarter of people who have absence seizures will develop another type of generalized seizure called tonic-clonic seizures (formerly called ''grand mal'' seizures). The vast majority of children, however, will outgrow them

Absence seizures rarely cause a true convulsion in which the person falls down or collapses. While many people presenting with seizures do so with a prior history of events, between onethird and half present with a single unprovoked seizure6,11. Most studies combine the incidence rates for all newly diagnosed unprovoked seizures.