Cognitive functioning over 3 years in community dwelling older adults with chronic partial epilepsy

Little is known about cognitive functioning of older adults with chronic partial epilepsy. We examined cognitive performance of this epilepsy patient group over 2-3 years. Seventeen older adults with epilepsy and 17 healthy older adults were administered measures of overall cognition and verbal memory at baseline and 2-3 years later. At baseline, older adults with epilepsy performed below controls on overall cognition and verbal memory (p's<0.001). These deficits generally remained stable at follow-up, although executive control appeared to decline (p<0.05). Older adults with epilepsy showed a failure to benefit from practice on a verbal memory measure (p=0.017). Older adults with epilepsy demonstrated cognitive deficits that generally are not progressive. A failure to benefit from repeat exposure to a Delayed Recall task could indicate learning deficits. These patients may also progressively lose executive control, possibly as a result of accelerated aging.