In Children With Temporal Lobe Epilepsy Depression Is Common

In Children With Temporal Lobe Epilepsy Depression Is Common

A repaired study determined that children and adolescents with seizures involving the temporal lobe are to be expected to have clinically significant behavioral problems and psychiatric disease, especially depression. Findings published in Epilepsia, a magazine published by Wiley on behalf of the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE), highlight the consequence of routine psychiatric evaluation for pediatric epilepsy patients - particularly for those who act not respond to anti-seizure medications and call for epilepsy surgery.

Current medical evidence indicates that ideal illness occurs in up to 40% of pediatric epilepsy patients, with depression, anxiety, attention issues and acquirements difficulties being the most common psychiatric conditions in children. Furthermore, a 2009 study of of mature age surgical patients found that depression was associated with seizures in the temporal lobe - a customary focus for surgically treated epilepsy according to Sanchez-Gistau et al.1 However, like evidence is not well established in pediatric patients and is the converging-point of the present study.

"Our scrutiny examined whether psychiatric illness was further prominent in children who were unresponsive to anti-seizure medications and had seizures in the of this life lobe versus elsewhere in the brain," explains precedence study author, Dr. Jay Salpekar with Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. "In children who make not respond to drug therapy, epilepsy surgery may be the only election to improve their quality of life. Understanding the pediatric patients' mental health status is important, as the exactness of psychiatric illness may impact the overall hazard-benefit of epilepsy surgery."

For the current study, researchers reviewed capsule records for 40 children between the ages of 6 and 17, who did not respond to anti-seizure medications. Patients were given pre-surgical psychiatric evaluations and their parents completed the Child Behavioral Checklist (CBCL). The grasp location and suitability for surgical procedures were confirmed the agency of epilepsy specialists.

The investigators found that this pediatric assiduous group had psychiatric and behavioral problems well superior to what is typically reported in children through chronic epilepsy. Nearly 80% of participants had important psychiatric symptoms - far greater than the 20%-40% preponderance of mental illness generally found in inveterate pediatric epilepsy. Furthermore, children with seizures suspected to exist localized in the temporal lobe were added likely to have depression symptoms and again significant behavioral issues reported by parents compared to children by seizures in other brain regions.

Dr. Salpekar concludes, "Given that psychiatric ailment, particularly depression, is so prominent in those with temporal lobe seizures, routine psychiatric evaluation appears to subsist important not only for adults, mete also for children and adolescents preceding to epilepsy surgery. In fact, it may be beneficial for most patients with medically stiff epilepsy to have a psychiatric impost, regardless of seizure localization, to improve disposition of life." Future studies are needed to study the variables associated with mental ailment outcomes in patients following epilepsy surgery.