Mental deterioration in childhood epilepsy

Mental retardation is detected in 20-30% of children with epilepsy at hospitals specializing in treatment of childhood epilepsy. However, the incidence of mental deterioration in childhood epilepsy is not high. In this study, mental deterioration was found in 52 (1.8%) of the 2,880 children with epilepsy at Okayama University Hospital. The patients showing mental deterioration mostly suffered from specific epileptic syndromes, such as West syndrome, Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, severe myoclonic epilepsy in infancy and epilepsy with continuous spike-waves during slow wave sleep. These types of epilepsy show generalized electroencephalographic (EEG) abnormalities. It is presumed that mental deterioration is caused by the total effects of prolonged diffuse EEG abnormalities and the age of the patients. Antiepileptic drugs exert a relatively minor effect on mental deterioration.