Epilepsy and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were reported to co-occur at rates higher than expected for coincidental findings. This study investigated the prevalence of both disorders in community-based primary care practice. The central database of the second-largest health maintenance organization in Israel was searched for all children aged 6 to 13 years (n = 284 419; 51.5% males) diagnosed as having ADHD according to the physicians' records and/or the filling of at least 10 prescriptions for antiepileptic medications according to pharmacy records. The prevalence of epilepsy in the total population was 5 out of 1000 children, and the prevalence of ADHD was 12.6%. More than one-fourth (27.7%) of the epileptic children were also diagnosed as having ADHD. On multivariate analysis, children with ADHD had almost twice the risk of epilepsy than children without ADHD. This study supports hospital-based findings of a strong interrelationship between ADHD and epilepsy. The high rate of ADHD in Israeli children warrants further investigation.

No abstract

The only investigative study that contributed to the diagnosis of autistic infants was the molecular diagnosis detecting Fragile-X. In spite of the high frequency of epilepsy and epileptiform abnormalities in the electroencephalograms of autistic children in general, the contribution of epilepsy, both clinical and subclinical, to the etiology of autism is apparently minimal.

Birth in Israel, an industrialized country, is a marker for an environmental risk factor for PDD. This may indicate that gestation, birth or infancy in industrialized countries exposes children to environmental insults that increase the risk for contracting PDD.