What is LKS

The Landau-Kleffner syndrome is a rare, severe epilepsy syndrome in childhood in which there is continuous epileptic activity in the speech-language areas of the brain during the night. This often causes problems in speech-language development. Some children no longer speak at all and no longer seem to understand anything. As a result, children with this epilepsy syndrome are sometimes initially mistakenly assumed to be deaf. Most children develop complaints between the ages of >1 and <12. Sometimes children have epilepsy attacks, but this is not necessary. LKS is more common in boys than in girls. Timely diagnosis and treatment are important. The epileptic activity disappears during puberty. Recovery can take place to a greater or lesser extent. In rare cases, a new form of epilepsy may develop after extinction.
The CSWS syndrome is very similar to the Landau Kleffner syndrome. CSWS and sometimes also LKS is also called ESES or nowadays summarized with other related syndromes under the name D/EE-SWAS (Developmental and Epileptic Encephalopathy with Spike-wave Activity in sleep).
Together, this has major consequences for the daily life of the child, the family and the environment.

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