Today’s
health care practices have resulted in a substantial rise in the number of
older adults with epilepsy. In America we have one percent of our population,
three million, suffering with epilepsy. In the rest of the developed world, the
elderly over 65 also have the highest incidence of epilepsy. It no longer is
the pediatric population that develops the most cases of epilepsy (See my Blog
# 15, Epilepsy
is most common in the Elderly, at LanceFogan.com)
Older
people are more likely to have cognitive decline with epilepsy. There seems to
be a relationship between epilepsy and dementia. Epidemiological findings
reveal that people with late-onset epilepsy and individuals with Alzheimer’s
disease share common risk factors. Medical science isn’t conclusively settled
on the cause of Alzheimer’s nor who will develop it but it seems in some people
to be mediated by underlying vascular changes in the aging brain. Contributing
to their development of epilepsy is their survival after brain trauma, strokes
and various diseases.1
The
authors Sen, Capelli, et.al.,
suggest that there is considerable intersection between epilepsy, Alzheimer’s
disease and cerebrovascular disease raising the possibility that better
understanding of shared mechanisms in these conditions might help to ameliorate
not just seizures, but also epileptogenesis and cognitive dysfunction.
1.
A. Sen, V. Capelli, M. Husain. Cognition and dementia in older patients with epilepsy Brain, Volume 141, Issue 6, June 2018, Pages
1592–1608, https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awy022
Lance Fogan, M.D. is Clinical Professor of Neurology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. His hard-hitting emotional family medical drama, “DINGS, is told from a mother’s point of view. “DINGS” is his first novel. Aside from acclamation on internet bookstore sites, U.S. Report of Books, and the Hollywood Book Review, DINGS has been advertised in recent New York Times Book Reviews, the Los Angeles Times Calendar section and Publishers Weekly. DINGS teaches epilepsy and is now available in eBook, audiobook, soft and hard cover editions.
