People with epilepsy may face a significantly higher risk of developing dementia before the age of 65, according to a large new study that analyzed health records from hundreds of thousands of people in France and Sweden. Researchers found that epilepsy appeared repeatedly among people later diagnosed with young-onset dementia, a form of the condition that develops before age 65. The study, published in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, used two separate research approaches across two countries and arrived at similar results.
Rebecca Spiegel, a neurologist and chief of EEG and epilepsy at Stony Brook Medicine, spoke to Newsweek about the recent findings. "They are important, but we need to be cautious," she said. "In some patients, new-onset seizures may be an early manifestation of neurodegeneration rather than its cause, and, in addition, people with epilepsy may experience cognitive difficulties that do not necessarily indicate dementia and may be treatable, particularly given the disproportionately high incidence of depression and anxiety in this population." The researchers stressed that the findings do not show that epilepsy directly causes young-onset dementia.
Instead, the study identified a strong association between the two conditions. They also noted that although the relative increase in risk was substantial, the overall likelihood of developing young-onset dementia remained low. Young-onset dementia is less common than dementia diagnosed later in life, but it can have a particularly profound and devastating impact because it affects people during their working years and often while they are caring for families.
To investigate possible links with epilepsy, researchers used national health databases in France and Sweden. One part of the study looked backward in time to determine whether people diagnosed with young-onset dementia had previously received an epilepsy diagnosis or epilepsy medication. A second analysis followed people with epilepsy over time to see whether they later developed dementia.
In the retrospective analysis, researchers compared 11,360 people with young-onset dementia in France with 113,600 people of the same age and sex who did not have dementia. In Sweden, they compared 16,433 people with young-onset dementia with 164,330 people without the condition. The differences between the groups were striking.
In France, 12.5 percent of people with young-onset dementia had previously been diagnosed with epilepsy, compared with just 1.2 percent of those without dementia. Researchers also found that 27.3 percent of people with dementia had received epilepsy medications, compared with 10.3 percent of those who did not have dementia. The Swedish data showed similar patterns, strengthening the consistency of the findings across two separate national health systems.
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