Epilepsy in Elderly Patients

Abstract

A population of 6084 patients, aged over 60, hospitalized at the department of general internal medicine was studied. An average prevalence of unprovoked epileptic seizures 12.G and age-specific prevalence of unprovoked epileptic seizures was found: 9.9 (age 60-69), 12 (age 70-79), 15.8 (over 80). Most of our patients suffered from partial and secondarily generalized tonic-clonic seizures (GTCS, SGTCS), or partial seizures (PS) only. There was one patient with non-convulsive status-epilepticus (NCSE) and neuro-psychiatric clinical symptomatology only, and with rapid improvement after anticonvulsive therapy. 36 % of the patients suffered from vascular epilepsy, 6,4 % suffered from tumoral epilepsy and in 22 % the seizures persisted before the age of 60. The population of our hospitalized patients had a high prevalence of epilepsy, and high proportion of potential risk factors for "cryptogenic" cerebral damage. The prevalence increased with advancing age of the patients.