Epilepsy in Elderly Patients and Affective Disorders

Abstract

Introduction This makes the issues of epilepsy in elderly patients and of emotional and affective disorders more and more topical. Study objectives To study the structure of non-psychotic psychiatric disorders (NPD) in post-stroke elderly patients and in patients with symptomatic post-stroke epilepsy. Materials and methods Two groups of 56 patients were studied. In Group 1 (37 patients: 21 men and 16 women), the stroke was complicated by the development of symptomatic post-stroke localization-related epilepsy. In Group 2 (19 patients: 7 men and 12 women), no paroxysmal states of the epileptic nature were found. The average age of Group 1 patients was 63.00 years, of Group 2 patients, 62.5 years. Results In Group 1, affective d epression-spectrum disorders were found more frequently than in Group 2 (Group 1 – 78.9%; Group 2 – 33.3%), whereas in Group 2, affective anxiety-spectrum disorders were found more frequently than in Group 1 (Group 1 – 21.1%; Group 2 – 66.7%). The average depression score in Group 1 and Group 2 was 34.81±2.73 and 28.57±3.07 on the BDI scale and 21.84 ±1.50 and 13.79±1.36 (p≤0.01) on the HRDS scale, respectively. In Group 1, a considerable correlation dependence between the index of the impact of depression and anxiety on the manifestation of other psychopathological factors (up to .819**) and the General Severity Index (GSI) was found. In Group 2, a weak correlation dependence between anxiety and the GSI (up to .828*) Conclusion The study results have shown a high severity of depression in elderly patients with symptomatic post-stroke epilepsy.