Can epilepsy affect people's memory and IQ?

Epilepsy is a paroxysmal and transient brain dysfunction, and its pathophysiological basis is the abnormal discharge of central neurons.

Generally speaking, whether epilepsy can cause IQ and memory decline is closely related to epilepsy etiology, epilepsy type, seizure frequency, duration of each seizure, course of disease, scope and degree of brain injury. We take epilepsy in children as an example to illustrate the related factors that epilepsy may damage brain function such as IQ.

Epilepsy is common in children, and its incidence rate is much higher than that of adults, generally accounting for about 2/3 of all epilepsy patients. Among children patients, the factors related to the influence of diseases on intelligence are:

1 and disease types. In primary epilepsy, such as absence epilepsy and benign partial epilepsy in children, it often has no effect on intelligence. More than 90% of children with spastic epilepsy have mental retardation.

2. And the frequency of seizures. The more frequent seizures, the higher the incidence of mental retardation. Studies have proved that only 28% of children have epilepsy, with an average annual seizure of less than 1 1 time, and 76% of children have epilepsy every day.

3. Age of onset. The younger the onset age, the greater the impact on intelligence. According to the survey, more than 70% of children who are sick within one year old are mentally retarded. Only 40% of children aged 9- 15 are mentally retarded (the younger the onset age, the slower the brain development).

4. Take a lot of antiepileptic drugs for a long time. Its side effects may affect children's intelligence, but correct and reasonable antiepileptic treatment has little effect on intelligence.

Clinical observation shows that repeated attacks, especially persistent attacks, will cause severe hypoxia in patients' brains, which is an important factor to bring brain function damage to patients. The ultrastructure of epileptic foci showed that the number of local nerve cells decreased, degenerated and contracted, axon degenerated, glial cells proliferated, and capillaries dilated and congested. It can be seen that active treatment of epilepsy, seizure control and prevention of recurrence are very important to protect brain function.

Epilepsy is a common disease in neurology. Because of its diverse symptoms and complicated causes, epilepsy is repetitive and sudden, which is extremely harmful to human body. There is no age limit for epileptic patients in clinic, but for epileptic children, protecting their intelligence is the most concerned thing for every child's parents. Clinically, the causes of epilepsy are mainly divided into primary epilepsy and secondary epilepsy. Most types of epilepsy will not have much influence on children's intelligence, but what are the factors that affect children's mental decline? Epilepsy experts from Taiyuan Epilepsy Hospital introduced it in detail.

First, the cause of the disease

Not all types of epilepsy will affect the intelligence of patients, and most types of epilepsy in clinic have little or no influence on intelligence during treatment. As far as the etiology of epilepsy is concerned, the types of epileptic diseases caused by the primary disease will have a certain impact on the intelligence of patients, such as intracranial infection, cerebral hypoplasia, cerebrovascular diseases, anencephaly, localized cortical structural defects, tuberous sclerosis, schizencephaly and so on. The primary disease itself has caused serious damage to the patient's brain development. On this basis, it is necessary to effectively control epileptic seizures, which will have a certain impact on the patient's intelligence.

Second, the frequency of seizures.

Every seizure of epilepsy will lead to abnormal over-discharge of brain neurons, leading to brain dysfunction of patients. Children's frequent limb convulsions will affect their behavior, and frequent seizures will lead to brain neuron damage and hypoxia, which will not only affect patients' spirit and intelligence, but also affect their life safety.

Third, unreasonable treatment.

During the treatment of epilepsy, many children's parents often go to the hospital in a hurry to treat their children as soon as possible, which leads to the children taking a variety of antiepileptic drugs during the treatment. Clinically, epilepsy patients follow the principle of single drug. When single drug treatment fails, dressing change treatment should be considered, and combined drug treatment should be considered when single drug treatment fails. However, many parents of patients do not understand the characteristics of epilepsy treatment and start taking more drugs, which leads to side effects of drugs and mental impairment.

Epilepsy experts pointed out that epilepsy is a intractable disease in neurology. In the treatment of epilepsy, don't blindly choose the treatment method without knowing your own condition and disease, which will have a great impact on your child's health. In the process of treatment, don't listen to rumors and make wrong judgments. If in doubt, you can consult a professional epilepsy doctor in time.

After taking epileptic drugs, some epileptic patients may have abnormal symptoms such as anorexia, fatigue, lethargy, hyperactivity, memory loss, inattention, headache, dizziness, unstable walking, nausea, vomiting or rash, liver injury, and mood changes. However, as long as you go to the regular hospital in time to conduct a comprehensive examination of the patients, check the blood drug concentration of the patients and detect the allergic reaction of the drugs, and at the same time change the dressing or adjust the dosage of the patients, and make treatment adjustments under detailed examination. It can effectively avoid the side effects of patients and minimize the impact of drugs on patients.

Every attack will cause brain hypoxia, especially grand mal and status epilepticus. Long-lasting seizures will definitely affect the brain.

Therefore, once epilepsy is diagnosed and treated with antiepileptic drugs, antiepileptic drugs must be taken orally on time and in quantity, and liver and kidney functions and EEG should be reviewed regularly.

If the sensitivity of antiepileptic drugs decreases and seizures cannot be effectively controlled, doctors should be consulted to adjust the type or dosage of antiepileptic drugs.

After regular treatment, except for a few idiopathic epilepsy, which may be difficult to treat, many epilepsy can be cured. Many secondary epilepsy can be cured by surgery.

I wish you a speedy recovery!

Some epilepsy will affect memory and IQ, while others will not. If it is cured within five or six years, it will only be once or twice a year, and it will basically not affect it. A few rounds a year, a few rounds a month, or even a few rounds a day, plus long-term western medicine control (toxic side effects), can not be cured, will affect memory and IQ. According to my treatment practice, no less than 85% of epilepsy patients can be cured. Only one tenth of Chinese medicine practitioners have the ability to cure epilepsy. Western medicine can only control ...

Stay tuned! You can refer to my previous answer in this regard.

Can taking antiepileptic drugs affect intelligence?

Jiang Yuwu, Director of Children's Epilepsy Center of Peking University First Hospital: Some drugs will affect children's intelligence, such as phenobarbital and antipsychotics. However, if you refuse to take the medicine, it will lead to frequent attacks and more harm to your child.

In fact, the most important factor affecting children's intelligence is the cause of epilepsy. For example, some children suffer from epilepsy because of abnormal brain structure, and their intelligence has a greater relationship with brain development.

Parents don't have to worry too much about the influence of drugs on their children's intelligence. The influence of drugs on children's cognition can be reduced by choosing drugs reasonably and taking appropriate doses to avoid unreasonable multi-drug treatment.

Epilepsy is equivalent to "epilepsy syndrome" in traditional Chinese medicine. It is intermittent coma, limb convulsion or abnormal sensation or mental disorder. It is often accompanied by disturbance of consciousness or muscle spasm, which is easy to recur and belongs to chronic diseases. If it is caused by local brain injury, it is called secondary epilepsy, and the unexplained epilepsy is called primary epilepsy. Once diagnosed, take medicine as soon as possible to avoid repeated convulsions and brain damage. Experienced doctors should choose appropriate drugs and make treatment plans according to the type of attack. At present, many tablets are treated by single drug, which avoids mutual interference between drugs and increases toxic and side effects. The maintenance amount of drug treatment should be individualized, paying attention to age characteristics and individual differences. When the effect is not good, we should consider switching to other drugs, and monitor the blood concentration of drugs to guide bed medication. At present, antiepileptic drugs mainly control and prevent seizures, so long-term regular treatment is needed.

Because if seizures stimulate brain cells, brain cells will lose their memory if they are disturbed. It is suggested to keep a happy mood and avoid emotional excitement and excessive pressure to reduce the chance of epileptic seizures.

Seizures have two different effects on thinking:

1. Epilepsy can affect areas of the brain responsible for specific functions. If epilepsy only affects the area responsible for language, it may happen that patients can't name what they are familiar with.

2. Epilepsy can affect the connection between different areas of the brain, so that even if you know the name of this thing, but different areas of the brain can't be connected, you still can't name it.

Therefore, if we know where the epileptic focus is in the brain, we can judge which functions of the patient may be affected. When epilepsy affects many areas of the brain, many functions of the body will be affected, even intelligence.

At the same time, seizures originating from the frontal lobe of the brain may weaken the planning ability of patients, and patients may not be able to organize their thoughts or actions in the best way.

For example, planning a shopping list may require thinking or writing the same question over and over again; At the same time, it may be more difficult to communicate with people; Attention is often unable to concentrate. Many people feel that their personality has changed after epilepsy, and it may be difficult to stop their incorrect behavior, such as saying something incorrect and uncomfortable.

If you find that your child has some of the above conditions, and you are not sure whether it is related to epilepsy, please actively seek the help of a doctor. Find out whether it is the disease itself, drugs or other reasons. Many similar problems will be obviously improved after the doctor evaluates and adjusts the treatment plan.

Not necessarily, depending on what type of epilepsy you are, epilepsy with cerebral palsy 100% will affect your memory and intelligence. My "secret recipe from my family" Chinese medicine has been proved to restore the memory of this kind of epileptic patients and improve their IQ, even surpassing their peers.

The sooner the better, the smaller the better. However, all the children I treat are seven or eight years old. They are old and difficult to treat, and the treatment takes a long time.