, a neurologist told an audience at the annual meeting of the American Epilepsy Society. She urged colleagues to focus on possible interactions with other neurological conditions, consider various complicating factors, and embrace a team strategy.
“There are lots of nuances,” said Rebecca O’Dwyer, MD, an adult epilepsy specialist with Rush Epilepsy Center in Chicago. “It takes a lot of time and requires a multidisciplinary approach. Taking care of older individuals with epilepsy truly is a team sport.”
According to a 2014 report highlighted by Dr. O’Dwyer, “nearly 25% of new-onset seizures occur after age 65. The incidence of epilepsy in this age group is almost twice the rate in children, and in people over age 80, it is triple the rate in children.”
Research suggests it can take up to 2 years to correctly diagnose epilepsy in older people, Dr. O’Dwyer said, and nearly two-thirds of cases may be misdiagnosed. “Some of it is just limited awareness. There’s this perception in the public that epilepsy is something that occurs in younger adults or young children, and that when you come to a certain age, you cannot have epilepsy. Also, there are differences in the clinical manifestations of their seizures, and many comorbid possibilities could also present in similar fashion to epilepsy. Some of our usual tools that we use to come to the diagnosis such as EEG are also known to be less sensitive in this age group.”
According to the 2014 report, research finds that the elderly are much more likely than young adults to have postictal sleepiness or unresponsiveness and seizures manifesting as brief moments of subtle confusion. They’re much less likely to have epileptic aura and generalized tonic seizures.
“An epileptic seizure in an older adult tends to be less dramatic with fewer motor manifestations, and they often tend to be monophasic. They may be so subtle that they’re missed by family members and other medical providers,” Dr. O’Dwyer said. “I had a patient whose seizure consisted of her tapping her left shoulder. She had been doing this for at least 6 months, and she came to my clinic after her daughter realized that she was a little confused afterward. She’d already seen a behavioral neurologist and been given the diagnosis of dementia. We were fortunate enough to catch one of these episodes while we were doing an EEG, and we diagnosed her with focal epilepsy. With one antiseizure medication, we stopped the seizures, and her memory came back.”
Make sure to take detailed histories and keep an eye out for descriptions of behaviors that are episodic but perhaps not typical of seizures, she said.
Epilepsy can be misdiagnosed as a variety of conditions, she said, such as syncope, Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, Parkinson’s disease, and atrial fibrillation. “When you do diagnose somebody older with new-onset epilepsy, you should work them up for a stroke. Because we know that within the first 4 weeks after their first seizure the likelihood that they could have a stroke is three times higher.”
It’s also possible that neurological conditions can be followed by new-onset epilepsy, she said, making dementia even worse. Low-dose antiepileptic drugs can be helpful in these patients.
But seniors are especially vulnerable to side effects of antiepileptic drugs such as sedation, dizziness, and cardiac-conduction abnormalities. “You must adhere to the mantra of going low and going slow because they are exquisitely susceptible,” Dr. O’Dwyer said.
She recommends lamotrigine, which is well tolerated with helpful mood-stabilizing effects, and levetiracetam, which attenuates cognitive decline in dementia but may cause side effects such as irritable mood. Zonisamide is showing promise in patients with parkinsonian syndromes, she said, and it may be helpful to maximize drugs that patients are already taking such as gabapentin or pregabalin.
Finally, Dr. O’Dwyer urged colleagues to work in teams that include caregivers, primary care doctors, social workers, and pharmacists. “Sometimes in all this,” she said, “my job is the easiest.”
Dr. O’Dwyer discloses research support from the Shapiro Foundation.