Causative factors for suicide attempts by overdose in epileptics

We investigated possible causative factors for the high epileptic suicide rate by reviewing the cases of 22 patients with idiopathic epilepsy found among 711 patients hospitalized for a suicide attempt by overdose. Suicide attempts occurred with increased seizure activity in one epileptic; otherwise, no relationships were found with seizure-related variables. When matched by age, sex, and race with 44 nonepileptic controls from the same population, the epileptics had more borderline personality disorders with multiple impulsive suicide attempts (45.5% vs 13.6%), more psychotic disturbances, including command hallucinations (31.8% vs 9.1%), fewer adjustment disorders (18.2% vs 45.5%), and a comparable frequency of depression (13.6% vs 25%). We conclude that suicide attempts in epileptics are primarily associated with interictal psychopathologic factors, such as borderline personality disorder and psychosis, rather than with specific psychosocial stressors, seizure variables, or anticonvulsant medications.     

Folate metabolism in epileptic and psychiatric patients

Serum and red cell folate levels and serum vitamin B₁₂ levels have been estimated in 33 normal controls; 34 epileptic outpatients, 19 of whom also suffered from psychiatric illness; 33 epileptic inpatients with psychiatric illness; and 30 non-epileptic inpatients with psychiatric illness. Significant lowering of serum folate and red cell folate levels was observed in epileptic patients with psychiatric illness, and a less significant fall in red cell folate levels was found in non-epileptic psychiatric patients. Serum folate levels less than 2·5 ng/ml. were found in two controls, seven outpatient epileptics, 29 inpatients, and 10 non-epileptic patients. Red cell folate levels less than 100 ng/ml. were found in two controls, nine outpatient epileptics, 23 inpatient epileptics, and seven non-epileptic patients. A significant correlation was found between serum and red cell folate values in control, epileptic, and non-epileptic patients. In the epileptic patients there was a significant association between low serum and red cell folate levels and the presence of psychiatric illness. The origin and possible significance of these findings are discussed.     

The relationship of life adversity, social support, and coping to hospitalization with major depression.

We evaluated the relationship between life events, social support, coping, and depression in 27 male inpatients meeting the requirements for Research Diagnostic Criteria major depressive disorder and in 35 age- and sex-matched nonpatients. Overall, the hospitalized depressed patients reported significantly more events and difficulties than did the controls, but this difference in statistical significance disappeared after excluding from analysis "non-independent" happenings which could have been brought on by depression. More hospitalized depressed patients (23 of 27, or 85%) than controls (8 of 35, or 22.9%) experienced markedly threatening events and difficulties ("marked adversities") in the 6 months before their interview. The depressed group also reported having significantly fewer social supports, being less satisfied with the emotional component of this support, and using more emotion-focused coping than the controls. A discriminant analysis predicted depressive status from a combination of marked adversities, reduced number of social supports, and greater use of emotion-focused coping. The results indicate that the relationship of life events to depression is complex. The excess number of events might be partly a product of dysfunctional behavior that "produces" depression-related events which might, in turn, exacerbate depression; simultaneously, patients are more likely to experience highly adverse events which might precipitate the depression in the first place. Reduced social supports and the use of emotion-focused coping appear to also be associated with hospitalization for major depression.     

Symptomatic and drug factors contributing to undiagnosed depression in epilepsy

Depression extends notably into the epileptic population in the U.S. in rates of up to 55%. Despite the relatively high rates of depression found in epileptic patients, the rate of diagnosis is significantly lower. This study evaluates symptomatic trends found in depressed epileptics, as well as pharmacological factors surrounding depression in epilepsy, to ascertain possible reasons for the lack of diagnosis of depression in epileptic patients. Antidepressants, most notably SSRIs, possess significantly fewer side effects and interactions with anti-epileptics than antidepressants from older generations. The features of epileptic depression are more endogenous than neurotic. Depression is often neglected in busy health clinics as epilepsy and other conditions are regarded to be of greater severity and importance than depression. In order to increase the diagnosis of depression in epileptics clinicians need to implement quick, non-DSM-IV-centered screening questionnaires.     

Plasma HDL cholesterol in epileptics with elevated triglyceride and cholesterol

Due to the metabolic changes induced, e.g. in the liver by anti-epileptic drugs, the significance of high serum triglyceride and cholesterol in epileptics was studied and the plasma HDL cholesterol level was compared in 190 epileptic patients with elevated or normal triglyceride and cholesterol, with the corresponding values in 43 healthy subjects. One-third of the epileptic patients showed elevated plasma HDL cholesterol levels. Female epileptics had higher plasma HDL cholesterol than the normolipidemic healthy subjects. Epileptics with elevated triglyceride or a combination of elevated triglyceride and cholesterol had a lower plasma HDL cholesterol level than normolipidemic patients with epilepsy. HDL cholesterol level in epileptics with high serum cholesterol did not diverge from the level in epileptics with normal serum triglyceride and cholesterol. The results show significant differences of plasma HDL cholesterol between epileptic patients and normolipidemic healthy controls on one hand, and between epileptics with altered and epileptics with normal serum lipid levels on the other. The findings suggest that the increase of plasma HDL cholesterol level in epileptics undergoing anticonvulsant treatment is influenced by endogenous triglyceride metabolism.     

Verbal and visual memory impairment in childrem with epilepsy

Verbal and visual memory performances were evaluated in 60 epileptic children and 60 normal control subjects with Signoret's Memory Battery scale. Eighteen patients had idiopathic generalized epilepsy and 42 had partial epilepsy, mostly of the temporal (n=28) and frontal (n=10) lobes. Memory scores were statistically lower in epileptics than in controls and significant differences were found within each group: (1) children with idiopathic generalized epilepsy had a slight depression of visual memory; (2) memory disorder was more severe in partial epilepsy; and (3) children with left and right temporal lobe epilepsy had marked memory deficits related to hemispheric specialization.     

Association of low blood manganese concentrations with epilepsy

A comparison of hospitalized epileptic patients with matched normals showed that the mean whole blood manganese (Mn) concentration of the epileptic population was significantly lower than the mean of the normal population. The whole blood Mn concentration in the epileptics did not correlate either with seizure frequency or with anticonvulsant therapy. It was observed, however, that patients whose epilepsy was a result of trauma had significantly higher blood Mn concentrations than patients whose history was negative for trauma.     

情感障碍对癫患者认知障碍影响的事件相关电位研究

目的应用事件相关电位研究和探讨不同抗癫痫药对癫痫患者认知功能的影响以及情感障碍对癫痫患者认知障碍的影响。方法收集湛江中心人民医院神经内科门诊和住院的癫痫患者320例,正常对照组56例。分别进行韦氏智能测定和情感测定,同时结合抗抑郁剂治疗,并应用事件相关电位P300、N400研究,对比分析癫痫患者认知功能和情感障碍的特征。结果386例癫痫患者中,认知水平低于正常者达76．940。结果显示丙戊酸钠、妥泰、卡马西平单药服药组之间认知水平无差异,但药物联合应用认知功能损害严重。且患者职业、文化程度、病程、发作次数、用药选择以及是否存在脑部继发性疾病等对认知功能影响显著。伴随着认知功能和情感障碍,癫痫患者P300和N400潜伏期明显延长、波幅降低。百忧解治疗后R300和N400潜伏期和波幅明显改善,且颞顶叶脑区的波幅明显升高。结论抗癫痫药可造成癫痫患者认知功能的损害,单药应用较联合用药对癫痫患者认知功能损害轻。抗抑郁治疗可改善癫痫患者的认知功能,认知事件相关电位也明显改善。     

Cognition in epilepsy: a multichannel event related potential (P300) study

Auditory event-related potentials (AERP) were elicited in 68 epileptic patients and 30 age-matched controls. Epileptic patients had significantly prolonged N2 and P300 (P3) latencies compared with controls. Seven patients were above the range of 3 standard deviations from the control mean values. Amongst epileptics, patients with temporal lobe epilepsy had significantly prolonged P3 latencies compared to patients with idiopathic generalized epilepsy. Patients with abnormal EEGs had significantly prolonged P3 latencies compared to those with normal EEGs. Patients on anticonvulsant monotherapy had shorter P3 latencies, compared to patients taking a combination of two or more anticonvulsants. Patients on shorter duration of treatment had less prolonged P3 latencies compared to those on longer anticonvulsant treatment.     

Anxiety and depression among the epileptics in general population in Benin (Western Africa)

In order to assess prevalence of depression and anxiety among epileptic patients and to compare it to a control population, a matched case-control survey was performed in 196 persons above 18 Year old (98 epileptics and 98 controls matched according to sex, age 10 and social environment) in Republic of Benin (West Africa), using Goldberg's Depression and Anxiety scale. Two main investigators helped by 5 sociology students were trained on a questionnaire by a psychiatrist skilled with public health matters. People taking part in the survey are epileptic patients who already used health services. Inclusions took place within 17 communes of four departments (Mono, Zou, Ouémé, Atlantique) located in Southern part of Benin. The questionnaire used an Identity sheet and the Goldberg Depression Scale. Results are shown as mean standard deviations, for quantitative values, and percents for qualitative ones. Comparisons of proportions in qualitative variables are carried out using c2 test or Fisher's exact test. Comparisons of means rates between subject's groups are carried out with a Student t test or variance analysis. The correlations between two quantitative variables were assessed by linear correlation coefficient. Significance threshold chosen for the whole set of statistics analysis is 0.05. The majority of interviewed epileptic patients is young (average 32.6 11.5 Years old). A male predominance exists (sex ratio 1.28). 93% of interviewed persons live within their family, are married or cohabit (controls: 98.2%; cases: 87.9%); 57.4% are married (controls: 70%; cases: 44%). The most represented professional categories are craftsmen and shopkeepers (29.2%) as well as farmers (19.5%). Most of recruited patients live in an urban setting (55.4%) and 63.6% of interviewed persons had been living in the area of survey for over 10 Years. The most represented religion within the sample is Christian religion (67.7%), Animists (23.3%) and Muslims (5.8%). 97% of epileptic patients reported they had one fit during the two Years before the survey; roughly one half (48%) had 2 to 5 fits and 41.5% of them had more than 10 fits; only 14% say they have had an EEG. Presence of an Anti Epileptic Drug (77.5%) reduces anxiety and depression. Considering a severity threshold of 5 for anxiety and 2 for depression (8), proportions of epileptic patients displaying a severe anxiety (79.8%) or a severe depression (89.6%) are significantly higher (p<0.0001) than in control subjects (12.3% and 46.9%). Comparison of average scores confirms the difference (p<0.0001) between cases (5.8 2.0 and 2.3 1.9) and controls (4.7 2.4 and 2.0 2.1) regarding anxiety and depression. Neither the sex, nor age, nor life environment (urban/rural), nor frequency of fits hold significant influence over an-xiety and depression. However, results in this survey include higher average rates of anxiety and depression for women (6.3 1.8) than men (5.5 1.8), though such statement is only nearly significant (p=0.06). Results of the survey confirm the other works on this topic about characteristics of depression for epileptic patients, though results here are higher than usual. Anxiety and depression are common troubles found in epileptic patient, both often occurring at the same time. Two distinct theories about this fact are opposed, first explain the connection of anxiety and depression with epilepsy because of the social and cultural burden upon an epileptic patient in those countries, the second theory is about depression and epilepsy sharing some neuroaminergical dysfunctions; these facts were not considered in this survey. When taking into account the thresholds of seriousness on Goldberg's scale, proportion of controls displaying a probably deeper depression is high (46.9%) compared to usual hospital prevalence rates (4 to 25%) found in Western Africa where survey in general population are scarce. It could either be a bias in the selection or the confirmation that family and relatives of an epileptic patient are enduring a great psychic pain too; finally, this high rate o, this high rate of severe depression within controls may suggest a need to adapt thresholds of Goldberg's scale to match African populations. This hypothesis is interesting regarding the results of some Authors who validated this scale in population of aged people; they highlighted the fewer precision of two items (lost of interest, focus difficulties) and also a slight discriminatory weight for other few items. However the psychometric characteristics of Goldberg's scale are accurate (for depression subscale, a sensitivity of 88% and a specificity of 68%; for the whole scale, a sensitivity of 84% and a specificity of 68%). It would be pertinent to carry out a study to validate Goldberg's scale within some African populations. This study also highlights the importance of psychological factors in epilepsy and suggests a specific global care of the disease.     

Impaired effortful cognition in depression

Depressed patients have been reported to have deficits in "effortful," but not effortless, cognitive functions compared to healthy volunteers. To test the hypothesis that the effortful cognitive deficits in major depression are not simply a function of psychiatric illness or hospitalization, we administered both effort-demanding and effortless cognitive tasks to 17 inpatients with major affective disorder and 17 hospitalized psychiatric controls. The depressed patients performed significantly more poorly than the controls on the effort-demanding task. The groups did not differ on the effortless task. These findings suggest that depressed patients are impaired in performing effort-demanding cognitive tasks compared to nondepressed psychiatric patients.     

综合医院住院患者情绪问题的调查

目的:探讨综合医院住院患者情绪问题。方法:应用综合医院焦虑抑郁量表(HADs)对榆林市5家综合医院14个科室1 216例住院患者进行评估及分析。结果:本组70.9%(862例)患者有情绪问题,其中焦虑273例(22.5%),抑郁433例(35.6%),焦虑合并抑郁156例(12.8%)。不同性别、文化程度的患者焦虑、抑郁发生率差异无统计学意义;40岁患者焦虑发生率明显增高(P0.05)。外科、内科、妇产科患者情绪问题发生率明显高于五官科(P均0.05)。胸外科患者抑郁发生率最高(56.5%),内分泌科患者焦虑发生率最高(29.9%),血液科患者焦虑合并抑郁发生率最高(21.3%)。结论:综合医院住院患者情绪问题发生率高,40岁患者更容易出现焦虑,外科患者更容易出现抑郁。     

Do newborns of epileptics on anticonvulsants develop biochemical signs of osteomalacia?

In a controlled prospective study performed in 16 pregnant epileptics and nine normal pregnant controls, biochemical indices of calcium homeostasis (serum calcium, serum magnesium, serum phosphate, and serum alkaline phosphatases) were determined after 18 weeks pregnancy, at birth, 8 days and 6 months after birth. Furthermore, the same indices were measured in their newborns in the first 6 months of life. In both groups of mothers the serum alkaline phosphatase rose significantly during the pregnancy (P < 0.001), followed by a significant fall after the births (epileptics: P < 0.05, controls: P < 0.001), but the epileptic mothers had significantly higher initial serum alkaline phosphatase levels than the controls (P < 0.05). In both groups of newborns a dramatical fall in serum calcium was observed in the first day of life (P < 0.001), followed by a normalization after 1 month. The serum alkaline phosphatases doubled between day 8 and day 30 in both groups (P < 0.001).
In the standing debate whether epileptics should be treated prophyl-actically with vitamin D, the present study indicates that pregnancy in epileptics does not call for extra vitamin D supply, and their newborns do not develop more severe hypocalcemia than their controls.     

Code blue: seizures

Eyewitnesses frequently perceive seizures as life threatening. If an event occurs on the hospital premises, a "code blue" can be called which consumes considerable resources. The purpose of this study was to determine the frequency and characteristics of code blue calls for seizures and seizure mimickers. A retrospective review of a code blue log from 2001 through 2008 identified 50 seizure-like events, representing 5.3% of all codes. Twenty-eight (54%) occurred in inpatients; the other 22 (44%) events involved visitors or employees on the hospital premises. Eighty-six percent of the events were epileptic seizures. Seizure mimickers, particularly psychogenic nonepileptic seizures, were more common in the nonhospitalized group. Only five (17.9%) inpatients had a known diagnosis of epilepsy, compared with 17 (77.3%) of the nonhospitalized patients. This retrospective survey provides insights into how code blues are called on hospitalized versus nonhospitalized patients for seizure-like events.     

Post-epileptic headache and migraine.

One hundred epileptic patients were questioned about their headaches. Post-ictal headaches occurred in 51 of these patients and most commonly lasted 6-72 hours. Major seizures were more often associated with post-epileptic headaches than minor attacks. Nine patients in this series of 100 also had migraine: in eight of these nine a typical, albeit a mild, migraine attack was provoked by fits. The post-ictal headache in the 40 epileptics who did not have migraine was accompanied by vomiting in 11 cases, photophobia in 14 cases and vomiting with photophobia in 4 cases. Furthermore, post-epileptic headache was accentuated by coughing, bending and sudden head movements and relieved by sleep. It is, therefore, clear that seizures provoke a syndrome similar to the headache phase of migraine in 50% of epileptics. It is proposed that post-epileptic headache arises intracranially and is related to the vasodilatation known to follow seizures. The relationship of post-epileptic headache to migraine is discussed in the light of current ideas on migraine pathogenesis, in particular the vasodilation which accompanies Leao's spreading cortical depression.     

Possible relationship between phenylthiocarbamide taste sensitivity and epilepsy

The study was based on the data of a sample of 400 epileptic patients (200 idiopathic and 200 symptomatic) and 100 normal healthy individuals serving as controls. The PTC threshold distribution was bimodal. The number of non-tasters among idiopathic epileptics (35.5%) and symptomatic epileptics (32.5%) was significantly higher than controls (20%). The relative incidence of non-tasters in idiopathic and symptomatic epilepsies was 2.20 and 1.93 respectively. There is evidence that non-tasters tend to ingest a greater quantity of bitter tasting goitrogenic substances present naturally in edible plants which in turn exert greater thyroid stress in non-tasters or less sensitive tasters. Such a stress during intrauterine or early childhood growth and development might have affected neurological maturation which in turn made them more susceptible to epilepsy than tasters, who faced lesser stress.     

Motor cortical thresholds and cortical silent periods in epilepsy.

We studied motor cortical thresholds (TIs) and cortical silent periods (SPs) evoked by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in 110 epileptic patients. Sixty-two had primary generalised, 48 had partial type seizures. Fifteen out 110 patients were analysed both before and after anticonvulsant medication. Our aims were to evaluate the TI levels and the duration of SPs in patients with epilepsy and to determine the reliability of TMS in patients with epilepsy. There was no negative effect of TMS on the clinical status and EEG findings in patients with epilepsy. TIs obtained from patients with partial epilepsy were higher than those obtained from both controls and primary epileptics. The duration of SP in patients with primary epileptics was more prolonged than those obtained from controls. There was no correlation between EEG lateralisation and both SP duration and TI values. In de novo patient group, SP duration was significantly prolonged after anticonvulsant medication. We concluded that TMS is a reliable electrophysiological investigation in patients with epilepsy. The analysis of SP duration may be an appropriate investigation in monitoring the effect of anticonvulsant medication on the cortical inhibitory activity.     

Reduced natural killer cell cytotoxicity in depression but not in schizophrenia.

A reduction of natural killer (NK) cell activity has been found in hospitalized patients with major depressive disorder. To examine whether a reduction of NK activity is found in other psychiatric patients or related to the nonspecific effects of hospitalization, NK cell cytotoxicity was compared in hospitalized depressed patients, schizophrenic inpatients, and two groups of controls separately age matched to each patient group. NK activity was significantly (p less than 0.01) lower in depressed inpatients than control subjects. However, in the hospitalized schizophrenic patients values of natural cytotoxicity did not differ from controls. These findings suggest that reduced NK cytotoxicity in depression is independent of the effects of hospitalization.     

Electroencephalographic activation with methohexital in an epileptic population

Forty-one epileptics with normal or nonspecific EEG changes were subjected to methohexital and pentylenetetrazol activations (Group I). Fifteen epileptic patients with specific epileptiform discharges were subjected to methohexital activation procedures (Group II). The present study showed that, though it is a safe agent, methohexital is not an effective electroencephalographic activator for the epileptic population. In this study, it activated only 7% of the epileptics with normal records or minimal and nonspecific EEG abnormalities and it activated only 33.3% of epileptics who had previously demonstrated a specific paroxysmal epileptiform discharge in a routine recording.