Abstracts

Rationale: People with epilepsy often experience alterations in their quality of life, fatigue and energy level, cognitive functioning, and emotional status (International League Against Epilepsy, 2003). Interictal epileptiform discharges (IEDs) are abnormal spikes in neural activity observable only with an electroencephalogram (EEG). Most of the previous research into IEDs has focused on the role they have on a person’s cognitive functioning. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of IEDs on depression, fatigue, energy, cognition, and quality of life in epilepsy patients in a community clinical setting.   Methods: We conducted a retrospective review of data for 102 patients with epilepsy who were referred to the South Shore Neurologic Epilepsy Center for management of seizures. All patients underwent EEG and/or ambulatory EEG sessions, a Mindstream's NeurotraxTM screening, and completed Quality of Life in Epilepsy Inventory-31, PHQ-9 depression scale, and fatigue scale questionnaires (FSS). SPSS version 23 was used to determine the Pearson-r correlations between depression, fatigue, quality of life, energy level, cognitive function, and perceived overall quality of life. A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to compare depression, fatigue, quality of life, energy level, cognitive function, and perceived overall quality of life between the group with IEDs and the group without IEDs. Results: There was no significant difference between the two groups (with and without IEDs), except that for individuals without IEDs there was no correlation between depression and fatigue (Table 1). Participants in both groups showed no differences in QOLIE-31, FSS, and PHQ-9 scores (Table 2). F is ANOVA statistic, and p is significance. Conclusions: The lack of differences between the two groups suggests that the presence of IEDs has a limited impact on the patients' level of depression, fatigue, energy, and cognition. Although there were no differences between the groups, there was a stronger correlation between depression and fatigue in the IED group than in the non-IED group (z=1.91, p=0.06). Our results suggest that the presence of IEDs has no significant effect on patient's overall quality of life.  Funding: No funding