Important Research
Commenting for this news organization, Bruce Hermann, PhD, professor emeritus, Department of Neurology, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, said that the study is important because of the, “tremendous interest and concern about aging with epilepsy.”
“We want to know how people with chronic epilepsy age cognitively and what’s the cognitive course of those who have late onset epilepsy, particularly those with unknown etiology,” he added.
Dr. Hermann noted that much of the research in this area has been relatively small and single-center investigations.
“These larger-scale investigations from outside the epilepsy community are so important because they have data on large numbers of subjects, they have cognitive data, and follow-ups over long periods of time, and they’re providing some really novel information,” Dr. Hermann said.
He added that terms used in the dementia world such as MCI and frank dementia are somewhat foreign to epileptologists. In addition, interventions to delay, treat, or prevent cognitive decline such as exercise, diet, social activity, and mental stimulation that are regularly discussed by dementia experts are underrepresented in the epilepsy world.
“The things they talk about in memory clinics in the aging world almost routinely have not penetrated to the epilepsy clinics for aging individuals and for the epilepsy community in general.”
The study used the Montreal Cognitive Assessment to identify cognitive decline. “It would be nice to see how these people look with traditional neuropsychological tests,” said Dr. Hermann.
He added that information on the impact of epilepsy on different MCI phenotypes, for example, pure memory impairment subtype; pure nonmemory subtype; and multiple domain subtype, would also be useful.
The study was supported by the AES and the Alzheimer’s Association.
Dr. Zawar and Dr. Hermann report no relevant disclosures.
A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.