Abstracts

Older adults with epilepsy represent a considerable percentage of epilepsy patients. However, little is known about the cognitive effects of epilepsy in this group. We compared cognitive performance of older adults with epilepsy to older patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and healthy older adults to characterize cognitive impairment in older adults with epilepsy. 27 older adults with epilepsy ([gt]age 60), 27 MCI patients, and 27 healthy older controls were studied. Participants with epilepsy all had clinical diagnoses of partial-onset seizures for 29 years on average. All participants completed measures of overall cognition, executive function, verbal memory, and word fluency. No significant group differences occurred for age, gender, race or education. Older controls scored significantly higher than epilepsy patients on virtually all cognitive measures. Controls also scored higher than MCI patients on all measures except initiation and word fluency. MCI patients scored significantly higher than epilepsy patients on overall cognition and initiation. Epilepsy patients did not outperform either of the other two groups. [table1] Epilepsy patients performed below MCI patients on measures of executive function and overall cognitive functioning. MCI patients presumably have temporal lobe- based memory loss while partial epilepsy commonly arises from temporal and frontal lobes, consistent with the broader array of cognitive dysfunction in the epilepsy patients compared to MCI patients. Older adults with epilepsy manifest memory impairment to the same extent as persons with a clinical memory disorder (MCI) and have more global cognitive impairments. [table1] (Supported by Centers for Disease Control and the National Institute on Aging)