Epilepsy and mental retardation

Abstract

The author has found a distinct increase in the frequency of epilepsy with lower intelligence quotients. Other authors have published similar findings. Out of 1,544 mentally retarded patients in the County of West Zealand, 20% had epilepsy. Among the patients with mild mental retardation, only 8% suffered from epilepsy while half of the patients with intelligence quotients of under 20 had epilepsy. Out of 187 patients with cerebral palsy, approximately half also suffered from epilepsy. One third of the patients with epilepsy had suffered from neonatal asphyxia which is thrice as frequent as among all of the mentally retarded patients in this centre. Fuglsang-Frederiksen found that the number of patients with abnormal and severely abnormal EEG curves was approximately twice as high among severely retarded patients as in mildly retarded patients. 8% out of 159 patients with Down's syndrome had epilepsy as compared with 20% of all the mentally retarded patients. No connection could be found between the intelligence quotient and the EEG changes in patients with Down's syndrome.