Abstracts

Rationale: Patients with epilepsy are often on one or more anti-seizure medications (ASM). Side effects of ASMs tend to have an impact on patients’ quality of life. Currently the most frequently used clinical tool to measure side effects is the Liverpool Adverse Event Profile (AEP) which is limited by subjectivity. Alternatively, extensive neuropsychological testing can also be used to measure side effects of ASMs effecting cognition, however this may be costly and time-consuming. The purpose of this study is to find an automated, objective and easily administered way to measure ASM side effects.

Methods: The Cognivue Clarity utilizing a patented software that can objectively and quantitatively identify changes in cognitive function. It evaluated patients on numerous cognitive domains including processing speeds. Select patients meeting inclusion criteria, admitted to the epilepsy monitoring unit (EMU) at Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center (RLANRC) which is a safety net hospital in California were evaluated using the Cognivue Clarity while on full doses of their home ASMs, ranging from one to three medications. They were then retested once completely off of all their ASMs.

Results: The preliminary results of 19 patients meeting inclusion criteria admitted to the EMU at RLANRC were analyzed. On average there were overall improvement of scores in multiple neurocognitive domains including visuo-motor functioning, perceptual processing and memory while off ASMs compared to the same tests done while on full doses of ASMs, the results are summarized in the attached table and graph. The cumulative average scores in the above neurocognitive domains for the 19 patients while on full ASMs was 1217 (64%) when compared to after coming off of all their ASMs with a cumulative score of 1283 (67.5%). _x000D_ The data from the 19 patients’ individual comparisons showed persistent improvement off of all ASMs in the following categories; letter discrimination, motion discrimination, word discrimination, shape discrimination, motion discrimination, letter memory subset, delayed recall, visuospatial and average speed processing.

Conclusions: With the preliminary results from RLANRC patients, the Cognivue Clarity is suggested to be an effective, objective measure of neurocognitive variables in a select group of patients admitted to the EMU. We also demonstrated that it is feasible to use Cognivue for objective assessment in EMU. This is significant because it may provide an automated, objective and easily administered way to measure ASM side effects in the future.

Funding: None