Abstract
There are many factors that aggravate the clinical picture of children diagnosed with epilepsy. Through this study we will explore risk factors related to disease characteristics, cognitive impairments, intelligence and behavioral problems in children with epilepsy. Methods: Based on the medical data of children diagnosed with epilepsy being treated at the Pediatric Neurology Unit, University Hospital of Pristina, and the “Hope” Psychological Outpatient Center in Kosovo, about 100 epileptic children, 55 female and 45 male, aged between 6 and 11 years of school age were administered the Montreal Cognitive Assessment scale (MoCA), Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices (IQ), and Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) tests. Results: Children participating in the study reveals a predomination of the generalized epilepsy, which continue to be treated with anti-epileptics for more than 3 years. From them 67% did not show the presence of another co-neurological deficit. Neurological tests show evidences of moderate EEG changes in some children and MRI registrations in 65% of children are unchanged and continue to be treated with 1 or 2 antiepileptic drugs for being under control. Intelligence, cognitive and behavioral problems in cases where they were associated with a number of neuropsychological characteristics increase the risk of a disease aggravation and compromise their overall development. Discussion: We can imply that based on the severity of these concomitant factors of the epileptic conditions, they will constitute a high-risk factor for cognitive problems, low intelligence and the emergence of a number of internalizing and externalizing problems of the child with epilepsy. Conclusions: As a risk factor that increases the level of difficulty of epileptic children in some contexts, including general functioning, school, family and social context, the presence of neurobiological and neuropsychological factors such as issues in internalizing and externalizing behaviors, problems in the cognitive field and the IQ are seen, which is also expected to affect the overall development of children’s quality of life.
Highlights
Epilepsy is a common neurological disorder in which abnormal electrical discharges from the brain cause recurrent seizures (Paudel, Shaikh, Chakraborti, Kumari & Aledo-Serrano et al, 2018)
A study by Reddy and colleagues (Reddy, Younus, Sridhar & Reddy, 2019) found that epilepsy as one of the most complex brain disorders was associated with spontaneous damage as a result of abnormal electrical discharge in the brain and that about 40% of children diagnosed with epilepsy appear to have lesions that cannot be treated with antiepileptic drugs
Referring to the forms of therapy that are applied in these centers, there is a combination between treatment that aims at medical intervention through antiepileptics and the psychological intervention (Crudgington, Rogers, Morris, Gringras & Pal et al, 2020) through neurodevelopmental therapy for children with epilepsy who have compromised this aspect of their functioning
Summary
Epilepsy is a common neurological disorder in which abnormal electrical discharges from the brain cause recurrent seizures (Paudel, Shaikh, Chakraborti, Kumari & Aledo-Serrano et al, 2018). Both types of epileptic seizures refer to partial seizures that begin in an area of the brain and generalized seizures that begin in both cerebral hemispheres simultaneously. According to Reddy the variety of antiepileptic drugs, does not help a part of epileptic patients (Izadi, Ondek, Schedlbauer, Keselman, Shahlaie & Gurkoff, 2018) who present a form of epilepsy which fails to be fully traced in its clinical symptomatology based on the type of damage it causes (Reilly, Atkinson, Memon, Jones & Dabydeen et al, 2018) and the area in which it lies in the brain (Jones, Asato, Brown, Doss & Felton et al, 2020; Burke, Naseh, Rodriguez, Burgess & Loewenstein, 2019; Noebels, 2015). In most cases what pharmacological treatments do (Cacabelos, 2020; Mollon, Mathias, Knowles, Rodrigue & Koenis et al, 2020; Williams, 2020) is the symptomatic treatment of the concerns of the epileptic patient, who is only able to control the severity of the injury but gives little opportunity to keep the disease under control (Holmes, 2014)
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