Commission on Classification and Terminnology
Status as of May, 2008

At this time, there is a call for an updated or entirely new classification, a task the Commission on Classification and Terminology is currently tackling. The ongoing efforts are four-fold:

1) Update and revise terminology,

2) Explore and develop objective methods, criteria, and standards for identifying and validating new syndromes or diagnostic entities,

3) Revise the organizational scheme for syndromes and epilepsies into a flexible, multidimensional system that more accurately reflects what we do (and do not) know about different forms of epilepsy,

4) Develop a diagnostic manual to standardize definitions and provide examples for clinicians who are not necessarily experts in epilepsy.

In the meantime, we present the following explanations and suggestions, not as a new and certainly not as a rigid classification, but as a means to bridge between the 1989 approach and our current and evolving understanding of the epilepsies.

We are currently in transition between approaches and terminology that have served us well but which, perhaps by virtue of their earlier success, are increasingly out of date. We encourage interested individuals to read carefully the history of the classification efforts and to familiarize themselves with the issues ranging from clinical to molecular that impinge on this process. Many of the classification documents published in Epilepsia over the years are available through links on this website. The efforts to update and replace current approaches with rigorous, evidence-based ones will no doubt engender some debate. We intend to provide a forum for discussion of a preliminary proposal once it is sufficiently developed to be presented to the community.

Anne T. Berg, Ph.D.
Chair, Commission on Classification&Terminology
May, 2008