Abstracts

Rationale: Cognitive impairment is a common comorbidity in epilepsy, but how cognitive deficits impact everyday function is poorly understood. In other neurological conditions, more severe cognitive impairment is typically associated with poorer everyday function, particularly if executive dysfunction is present, but this relationship can be mitigated by numerous factors, including use of compensatory strategies and severity of other symptoms associated with the disease (e.g., motor changes). Quality of life (QOL) is the closest approximation to everyday function commonly used in epilepsy research, but QOL measures have a much broader focus than functional status alone. The purpose of this study was to advance the understanding of the relationship between cognition and everyday function in older adults with chronic (i.e., early onset epilepsy; EOE) and more recent (i.e., late onset epilepsy; LOE) epilepsy.

Methods: As part of the Brain, Aging and Cognition in Epilepsy (BrACE) study, 62 older adults (M = 66.19 years old; range 57-84 years) with focal epilepsy completed the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), a measure of global cognitive function, and the Everyday Cognition (ECog) questionnaire, a measure of functional status. Patients were divided into early (n=25) and late (n=37) onset epilepsy using an age cutoff of 55 years. Independent samples t-tests were used to assess group differences, correlations between cognition and everyday function were conducted, and linear regression was used to examine the interaction between cognition and age of onset on everyday function.

Results: There were no significant differences in total MoCA or ECog scores between patients with early and late onset epilepsy. Lower MoCA score (i.e. worse cognition) was associated with higher ECog score (i.e., poorer everyday function) in LOE (r = -.497, p <