Objective: High left-handedness, weak right-handedness, high cross-dominance, pathologic right-handedness and
bilateral atypical language dominance are implicated in epilepsy. Therefore, we aimed to determine hand, foot and eye
preferences in epileptic cases.
Method: For this purpose, 25 primary generalized epilepsy and 33 cryptogenic partial epilepsy cases were taken in this
study. One hundred forty-one similarly age and sex-matched healthy subjects were taken as the control group. The hand
preference was assessed by Annet’s handedness questionnaire. Additionally, two functional preferences (footedness, and
eyedness) and postural lateral preferences (hand-clasping, hand-clapping, and arm-folding) tests were performed in all
subjects.
Results: In Annet’s handedness questionnaire, right handedness was determined in 88.1%, left handedness in 7.9% and
mixed handedness in 4% of the epileptic cases. These values were 89.6%, 6.4% and 4%, respectively, in the control
groups. There was not any significant difference between the groups. In arm-folding test, the left hand preference was
found to be higher in epileptics (p < 0.001).
In both epileptic groups, male patients had increased left hand preference when compared to female ones in Annet’s
questionnaire (p < 0.005). At the same time, the family history of left handedness and left hand preferences in Annet’s
questionnaire were frequent in partial epilepsy group than in generalized epilepsy group (p < 0.05).
Conclusion: In the evaluation of Annet’s questionnaire, although there was not any significant difference between the
patient and control groups, that male epileptics and partial epileptics high preferences left hand may indicate abnormal
cerebral dominance.
Key Words: Epilepsy, Handedness, Cerebral dominance
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