A method or system is provided for diagnosing convulsions of a subject. The method or system may include two general components. First, a device or apparatus that measures and accumulates an electronic data stream representing the physical movements of the human limb(s) and presents that data to a suitable computational device or system for further processing. Second, a set of software or firmware algorithms that operates within the computational device on the data stream for the purpose of describing and characterizing the statistical properties of the movement signal during clinical seizure episodes. The system comprised of both components serves to distinguish and diagnose the movement features of ES events from those of PNES.