Carefully analysing the words patients use to describe their seizures may help doctors tell the difference between epilepsy and non-epileptic seizures. Non-epileptic seizures are also called psychogenic seizures. This could be a very useful tool to reduce the number of people misdiagnosed with epilepsy in the UK, currently estimated to be 20-31%.

The linguistic method of diagnosis has been pioneered in Germany and is now being tested at Sheffield University. Patients are asked to describe their seizures to doctors, who have been trained to listen to how patients describe their symptoms. Patients with epilepsy tend to volunteer details about what a seizure feels like and how they try to resist it, whereas patients with non-epileptic seizures talk in terms of complete memory loss, and offer no detailed description of what the seizure felt like.

Psychogenic seizures are not caused by an electrical discharge in the brain, but are a physical symptom of a psychological disturbance. They are involuntary - not faked. They are reasonably common in the general population, and tend to begin in early adulthood. About 70% of cases occur in women.

Psychogenic seizures are very often mistaken for epilepsy, as there is no single symptom that can definitely point to one condition or the other. Patients are often prescribed anti-epileptic drugs which do not treat their seizures. Eighty percent of patients with psychogenic seizures will have received at least one anti-epileptic drug before they are correctly diagnosed, and patients with psychogenic seizures make up 20 to 30% of people considered to have refractory seizures.