Effects of Epilepsy Type and Antiepileptic Drugs on Attention-Analysis with Dot Counting Test

Abstract

We performed dot counting test for evaluating whether epilepsy type and antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) would affect. the attention in epileptic patients. Fifty-three patients with epilepsy consisting of 28 temporal lobe epilepsy (TLEs) and 25 idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGEs) were compared to 18 normal adult volunteers (normals). There were no significant correlation between dot counting score (DC score) and clinical variables such as age, sex, duration of epilepsy and seizure frequency. Only the full scale IQ of WAIS showed significant correlation (r=0.35, p=0.021) to the DC score. Regarding epilepsy type, the TLEs showed significantly lower DC score (p=0.006) in comparison with normals. The IGEs failed to show statistically significant difference. Regarding the number of AEDs administered, the patients with polypharmacy showed significantly lower DC score (p=0.003) than normals. The patients with mono-pharmacy exhibited no significant difference in comparison with the normals. There were no difference of the DC score between the kind of AED. Serum PHT cocentrations, however, correlated significantly (r=0.43, p=0.023) to the DC score. © 1992, JAPAN EPILEPSY SOCIETY. All rights reserved.