Effect of Antiepileptic drugs on Psychomotor Functions and Memory in Epilepsy Patients

Objective: The present study was designed to compare the effect of various antiepileptic drugs on psychomotor and memory function in epileptic patient and to compare them with normal human volunteer. Material & Methods: It was cross-sectional case control study with a total of 30 cases and 30 controls. All 30 patients were diagnosed cases of Generalised Tonic Clonic Seizure (GTCS) and were on antiepileptic drugs for more than one year. Comparison of patients for all psychomotor tests with the normal subjects matching in age, gender and education was done using unpaired t test. Results: In all the test patients performed poor compared to control group and the difference was significant (p<0.05) for Digit letter substitution test, Choice reaction time (audio and video) where as it was very significant (p<0.01) for Critical flicker fusion test and PGI Memory Scale. In Six-letter cancellation test and Hand steadiness test also patients performed poor compared to subjects but difference was not significant. A further comparison of all the tests was done between patients on monotherapy and polytherapy. PGI Memory scale showed significantly (p<0.05) inferior memory of patients on polytherapy as compared to monotherapy. In all other psychomotor tests also patients on monotherapy had better score compared to polytherapy but differences were not significant. Conclusion: Thus we conclude there is definitely a deterioration of psychomotor and memory with use of antiepileptic drugs.