[dogwood]

I went this weekend to an epilepsy conference put on by the Department of Neurology at Vanderbilt Hospital. One of the subjects I was most looking to hearing about was "mood disorders and epilepsy" that was one of their main workshops. I got some figures that were truly amazing. I thought they were worthy of being shared.
Among the facts:

• People with epilepsy were 5-20 times more likely than the rest of the population to have depression.
• People with depression were 4-7 times more likely than the rest of the population to have seizures.
• If someone with epilepsy had depression there were twice as likely to have the kind of seizures resistant to medication.
• People with epilepsy had a suicide rate three times higher than the rest of the population.
• People with epilepsy and depression had a suicide rate 32 times higher than the rest of the population. If they had temporal lobe epilepsy the rate was at its highest.

I was astounded by my of what I heard. They had no real explanations for some of these correlations. It was not simply a matter of people becoming depressed in reaction to epilepsy, although for some people that was without question the answer. It seemed more that the two processes were paralell but no one was sure why.
The workshop was great. I left with a lot of things swirling through my head I had never even thought about before.

Wow, scary stats! I have Temporal Lobe Epilepsy & Bipolar...since Bipolar includes depression I assume I could relate to these stats? I wonder why the two, depression & epilepsy, are related so closely.

[KathyM]

When my son was in fifth grade during the mid-1990s, I took in his classmate as a foster child under emergency circumstances. His official diagnoses at the time was Explosive Personality Disorder, along with some educational issues. They had him heavily medicated on Neurontin - but because of the emergency situation, I was never given authority to obtain the medicine. Neurontin was originally developed as an anti-seizure medication, but the company found other uses (i.e., marketing the side effects).

He lived with us for a year. During that time, I never ONCE saw any indication of an Explosive Personality Disorder. After he left our home, he was placed back on Neurontin.

We've stayed in touch over the years, and he's an adult now. I still consider him a son. That anti-seizure medication never improved his so-called personality disorder. Instead, he now suffers from a horrible SEIZURE DISORDER. Because of this, he needs to live in a group home and is basically considered an outcast in the community. It's difficult for him to find employment, he is unable to drive, and he can't live alone. Because of his painful and debilitating seizures, I now see traces of an "explosive personality disorder." I can't blame him. It hurts to see how life treated that sweet kid - and to think of what could have been.

[wing]

These are interesting statistics considering so many of the meds to treat bipolar are neuroleptics...the areas for mood disorders and seizures must be located very close to each other in the brain.