Abstracts

Rationale: Over 30% of patients with epilepsy suffer from seizures despite pharmacological intervention. Some patients who experience successful treatment of seizures through the use of anti-epileptic drugs may still suffer from harmful drug side effects. Physical activity's influence on the brain may prevent, reduce, or alleviate seizures. This presentation will review the available evidence from humans relating physical activity (PA) with epilepsy. Methods: Web of Science literature searches were conducted in October 2015 using the terms: physical activity, exercise, epilepsy, and seizure. Returned articles were reviewed for data testing the relationship between PA and epilepsy. Reference lists of relevant studies were also screened for possible inclusion. Results: Fourteen articles with data examining the relationship between PA and epilepsy were identified. Nine were cross-sectional studies, and all measured PA using self-report questionnaires. Seven of these studies with sample sizes ranging from 163 to 120,845 found that people with epilepsy were significantly less active than comparison groups of people without epilepsy. The other two cross-sectional studies found that people with epilepsy were insignificantly less active than people without epilepsy. One case control study comparing PA and fitness of adults with epilepsy (n=93) to age- and sex-matched controls found that people with epilepsy had poorer performance on muscle power tests in the absence of significant differences in self-reported PA. One prospective cohort study (n=1,173,079) evaluating cardiorespiratory fitness of Swedish men at age 18 found that compared to people with high fitness, people with low fitness were 1.88 times more likely to develop epilepsy later in life, and men with medium fitness were 1.36 times more likely to develop epilepsy, excluding people with cerebrovascular disease, traumatic brain injury, and diabetes. Three articles evaluating the effectiveness of a PA intervention for improving seizure control were identified. Results of two uncontrolled studies were mixed, with one reporting reduced seizure frequency during a 15-week exercise intervention and the other reporting no change in seizure frequency. One small (n=28) randomized controlled experiment explored the effects of PA on seizure control, and it found that people with epilepsy who adopt a physical exercise program for 12 weeks showed no change in seizure frequency. Conclusions: Cross-sectional studies consistently show that people with epilepsy are less physically active than people in the general population. One large prospective cohort study provides strong evidence that physical fitness reduces the risk for the development of epilepsy later in life. One small, short term randomized trial showed no effect of exercise training on reducing seizure frequency. Additional investigations are needed to better establish the relationship between epilepsy and both PA and fitness as well as explicate possible moderating variables. Funding: This research was not funded by any external source.