Cognitive impairment in patients with epilepsy: A case control study at a tertiary level hospital in India

Abstract

Introduction: Cognition is defined as the capacity of the brain to process information accurately leading to an adaptive behaviour. This study aims at understanding the decline in cognition in patients diagnosed with epilepsy in India using a standardized cognition scale. Methodology: We did a case control study in the Department of Psychiatry, Government Medical College, Miraj in which all patients with a diagnosis of epilepsy from October 2016 till February 2017 were included. Patients were tested for cognitive impairment using the PGI Memory scale (PGIMS). Controls were included from the population sample of non teaching staff of college. We noted age, gender, handedness, and education levels and clinical information. All cases and controls were tested for cognitive functioning using PGIMS. The data was analysed descriptively and then the cases and controls were compared using the unpaired Student’s t test, with p value less than 0.05 being statistically significant. Results:We enrolled 60 patients diagnosed with epilepsy and same number of healthy controls from the same insitution. Average age of the patients with epilepsy was 43.7±2.4 years and that of controls was 48.1±3.6 years. The difference between the cases and controls was found to be statistically highly significant in cognition tests like recent memory, remote memory, immediate recall and visual retention. On cognitive tests like attention and concentration, retention of dissimilar pairs, mental balance the difference between the groups was found to be statistically significant. Conclusions: Findings of our study demonstrates that patients with epilepsy shuould be routinely tested for cognitive decline.