The authors investigated the lateralizing value of the nose wiping, ictal and postictal (during three time periods before 30 s, before 60 s and before 180 s) in patients with temporallobe epilepsy. The nose wiping was present in 34 of 47 patients of evaluated patients (72.3 %) and in 72 of 152 evaluated seizures (47.4 %). It is thus a frequent symptom. During ictal evaluation the authors observed the nose wiping symptom only by the ipsilateral upper extremity in 75 % of seizures (p lang1029 0.01) .During postictal evaluation the nose wioping sympom was observed only by the ipsilateral upper extremity (with respect to the temporal lobe where the partial seizure originates) in 73.9 % (within 30 s), in 75.7 % (within 60 s) and in 75.4 % (within 180 s) of all seizures after which the nose wiping was observed. All these results are statistically significant when the used statisticall method is applied (p < 0.05, p < 0.01, p < 0.001). The results thus prove a high predictive value of the nose wiping ictally and postictally, ipsilaterally in relation to the „epileptogenic" temporal lobe within 3 minutes after the electroencephalographic end of the partial seizure. The nose wiping is thus one of the important lateralizing sympom in temporal lobe epilepsy.

        Key words: nose wiping, temporal lobe epilepsy, lateralizing phenomenon, postictal