Abstracts

Fatigue is a common complaint in clinical practice. Although fatigue is a frequent and disabling symptom in epileptic patients, there have been only a few investigations on the subject. We examined the frequency of fatigue and depression in semptomatic and idiopatic epilepsy patients and we aimed to assess the relationship between fatigue and cognitive dysfunction in idiopatic and semptomatic epilepsy patients by using P300. We measured fatigue and depression with the Fatigue Severity Scale(FSS) and Beck Depression Scale(BDS), respectivelly in 19 patients with idiopatic epilepsy, 54 patients with semptomatic epilepsy and 31 control subjects. The oddball paradigm was used in the measurement of P300 in all groups. FSS and BDS scores were significantly high and latancies of P300 were significantly long in idiopatic and semptomatic epilepsy patients. There was a poor corelation between depression and fatigue in epileptic patients. Although latencies of P300 was significantly long in idiopatic and semptomatic epilepsy patients with fatigue, there was no correlation latencies of P300 and depression. These findings suggest that there is an important relationship between fatigue and cognitive dysfunctions in idiopatic and semptomatic epilepsy patients.