Urine Clinitest: positive if the urine contains reducing
substances. Clinistick is used to detect glucose
Blood First-line tests: U&E, glucose, calcium, phosphate and
alkaline phosphatase, magnesium, acid-base status
Second-line tests (usually in secondary care): ammonia,
lactate, metabolic screens, chromosomal analysis if there
is evidence of dysmorphic features
EEG (Smith, 2005) Helps establish whether the seizures are epileptic or
non-epileptic. It is useful for:
■■Confirming the diagnosis such as focus in partial
epilepsy or 3-second spikes and waves in absence
seizures, or hypsarrhythmia pattern in West syndrome
■■Classification—i.e. generalised or partial epilepsy
■■ Showing evidence of photosensitivity
■■ Prognosis
■■Choice of treatment