Complex partial seizures and depression

Abstract

A long-recognized association exists between epilepsy and affective disturbance, especially depression. People with complex partial seizures that result from temporal lobe seizure foci are highly vulnerable to psychiatric disorders. Accurate diagnosis of such disorders is an important key to treatment. Interictal depression or dysphoria is the most clinically significant problem of this type. Pharmacotherapeutic treatments that have positive effects in other types of depressive illness are also effective for depression associated with epilepsy. Electroconvulsive therapy is helpful to some patients with depression that is refractory to drug treatment or psychotherapy. Surgical resection of seizure foci may lead to psychiatric improvement for some individuals, but can also have psychiatric complications.

Psychiatric Disorders after Epilepsy Diagnosis: A Population-Based Retrospective Cohort Study

“…Frequent hospitalizations due to epilepsy also contribute significantly to depression [33]. This finding is potentially associated with observations that a more severe course of epilepsy contributes to emergence of depressive symptoms [51]. Our study demonstrated quantitatively with different hazard ratios that epileptic patients who visited outpatient clinics, used emergency services and were hospitalized more frequently had higher risks of developing psychiatric disorders.…”

Depressive symptoms in patients with epilepsy and clinically associated features in a single tertiary center

“…In the current sample, the presence of generalized seizure significantly predicted severity of depression. This result did not appear to corroborate previous evidence demonstrating that, in comparison to generalized seizures, focal seizures were associated with a higher risk of depressive symptoms [ 58 ]. On the other hand, this evidence substantiates previous findings in the literature indicating that patients diagnosed with generalized seizure are the most vulnerable to severe depression [ 59 , 60 ].…”

Evaluation of the quality of life of patients with epilepsy and patients with physchogenic non-epileptic seizures

“…У односу на тип епилепсије, психопатологија се посебно често јавља код болесника са комплексним фокусним нападима, односно са епилепсијом темпо-ралног режња (149,150). Према узроку епилепсије, психичке промене су далеко че-шће код симптоматске него идиопатске епилепсије.…”