Acute Symptomatic Seizures in Critically Ill Patients with COVID-19: Is There an Association?

Acute symptomatic seizures are possible in patients with COVID-19 disease. These seizures are likely multifactorial in origin, including cortical irritation due to blood-brain barrier breakdown, precipitated by the cytokine reaction as a part of the viral infection. Patients with clinical signs of seizures or otherwise unexplained encephalopathy may benefit from electroencephalography monitoring and/or empiric anti-epileptic therapy. Further studies are needed to elucidate the risk of seizures and benefit of monitoring in this population.