A study published in the August 2009 issue of the journal Neurology says that childen who develop epilepsy need close monitoring to check if they are having cognitive problems after their first seizure. The study found that after the first seizure, children may also have problems with language, memory, learning and other cognitive skills.
27% of children in the study showed difficulties with these skills around the time of the first seizure. And in children who had more risk factors like multiple seizures, epilepsy medicines etc., had a 40% chance of showing difficulty with cognitive skills. The study also found that when children took epilepsy medicines, they had trouble in cognitive processing speed, language, verbal memory and learning compared to children who did not take any epilepsy medicines.
The study author Dr. Philp Fastenau said ""Children who take these medications should be closely monitored for cognitive problems resulting from the epilepsy drug. Surprisingly, our study also found academic achievement in these children was unaffected around the time of the first visit about three months after the first seizure in this study, suggesting there is a window early in epilepsy for intervention to avoid hurting a child's performance at school."
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