| Staring or altered awareness | Responsiveness, eye and motor signs, duration, context, video when safe, recovery, and clinician-selected EEG strategy. | A description alone cannot distinguish seizure, attention, sleepiness, shutdown, medication effect, or another event. |
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| Convulsive or motor event | Position, onset pattern, lateralization, breathing and color, injury, duration, rescue treatment, post-event state, and emergency assessment. | Describe the event in the observer’s own words; clinical assessment determines the diagnosis. |
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| Nocturnal event | Sleep stage or timing, airway and movement signals, synchronized video, EEG when indicated, medication, and next-day function. | Sleep association does not prove epilepsy; a routine waking study may not answer the question. |
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| Drop, collapse or unresponsiveness | ECG/rhythm, blood pressure, oxygenation, breathing, awareness, movement, prodrome, recovery, and EEG only when supported. | Cardiac, autonomic, respiratory, and neurologic mechanisms remain separate. |
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| Change in baseline cognition or motor access | Neurologic examination, sleep, pain, illness, medication, bowel, nutrition, sensory and psychiatric context, and repeated functional measure. | A functional change is important but not mechanism-specific. |
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