Objective. The effects of absence seizures on, reading have not been studie
d. The purpose of this paper is to show some alterations in reading during
absence seizures in, patients with video-electroencephalographic recordings
. Methods. Patients were selected if absences seizures were the only type o
f seizures. They were studied at rest with eyes closed and while reading al
oud a text by simultaneous bipolar electroencephalographic anal video recor
dings. Results. Eight patients were studied with 34 events. Absences ranged
from 1-12 events in twenty-five minutes recording, seizures duration range
d from 1.5-16 seconds. Brief seizures results on non-stop reading, but read
ing arrest with latency of 1-3 seconds after seizure onset were present in
the longer events. Post-absence amnesia ranged from 1-4.5 seconds. Re-start
reading occurs mainly in, other reading place in the text, but two patient
s in, one event re-started reading in the right place. Classic symptoms dur
ing absence were present and reading alterations found were: reading arrest
lost of reading point, bradylexia, dysprosodic reading, grapheme substitut
ion, reading loudness reduction, repeating of phrases. Events occurred with
out patient seizure awareness, except in, one patient by means of the time
lost between onset to the end of the event. Conclusions. This study showed
that acute reading alterations during absence seizures are frequent in long
er seizures, producing many neuropsychological symptoms that alter reading
without seizure awareness.