[Epilepsy and intelligence. I. Intellectual status in a group of 215 ambulatory patients]

A group of 119 men and 96 women, mean age 32.8 years, with a mean onset of the disease at the age 13 years was examined by Wechsler's intelligence test for adults (Wechsler-Bellevue). They assessed the mean intellectual level, total IQ mean = 104.4, s = 15.3. The intellectual performance of female patients had roughly a normal distribution, in men it was shifted slightly to higher zones. The mean absolute difference of the verbal IQ and performance IQ was mean = 8.4, s = 7.0, median = 7. The results are consistent with some more recent data in the literature on good intellectual abilities of the majority of epileptic subjects. The authors discuss the causes of frequent erroneous ideas of laymen and health professionals on an association of epilepsy and intellectual inadequacy. Among others there persists prejudice, problems of patients as regards memory, problems in the psychosocial sphere, psychopathological manifestations, adverse side-effects of drugs, sequelae of transient impairment of consciousness manifested clinically by short-term reduced performance. Real impairment of epileptic patients are assessed best by special neuropsychological methods, however, evaluation of intellectual abilities is necessary.