Abstracts

Rationale: to review concomitant illnesses and pharmacological management in elderly epileptic patientsMethods: 257 elderly epileptic outpatients from two Public Health Departments in Madrid. We analyzed the presence of concomitant illnesses as well the medication they were already receiving. We compared the results between patients diagnosed under the age of 60 (n=139) and those diagnosed over the age of 60 (n=118) Results: 77.4% of the elderly epileptic patients had other concomitant illnesses, the most frequent being hypertension (39%), hypercholesterolemia (24.1%) and heart pathology (20.2 %). We found that 15.2 % of the patients experienced one or more types of psychiatric symptoms and 3.89% cognitive impairment. The association of neurological disorder was 33.1% and in the majority of the patients this was due to cerebrovascular disease. On average, our patients were taking two types of medication (2.30 SD 2.3) in addition to their prescribed antiepileptic drugs. The most frequent additional medication included antihypertensive agents (40.1%), antiplatelet agents (28 %) and statins (25.3%), 9.3% were taking antidepressants, 7% benzodiazepines and 8.9% oral anticoagulants.Conclusions: In our group of elderly epileptic patients diagnosed over the age of 60, the incidence of concomitant illnesses was more common and this group was substantially affected by metabolic syndrome: hypertension and hyperchollesteronemia. Because elderly persons with epilepsy frequently take many types of medication concomitantly, the likelihood of drug interaction is quite high, especially with older AEDs. Such interaction frequently affects AED concentrations, and AED induced alterations in the kinetics of coadministered drugs are even more common.