Epilepsy Talk

Antidepressants — Improving Mood AND Seizure Frequency

Epilepsy and depression often go hand-in-hand. Up to 50% of people who have epilepsy also experience depression at some point in their lives, and this greatly impacts upon their quality of life.

The highest frequency rate occurs in those patients with seizure disorders arising in the temporal or frontal lobes or who have poorly controlled epilepsy. And among TLE patients, those with a left temporal focus had higher depression severity than those with a right focus. A more recent study confirmed these findings and found that patients suffering from a complex partial seizure disorder were much more inclined to have depression, compared to those with generalized tonic-clonic seizures.

However, concern for the potential of certain antidepressants to induce seizures has led to under-treating depression and anxiety disorders in epilepsy patients.