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Research Paper|Volume 13, Issue 3|pp 3573—3587

Late-onset epilepsy and subsequent increased risk of dementia

Zhi-Ren Tsai1,2,3,4,5, Han-Wei Zhang5,6,7,8, Chun-Hung Tseng9, Hsiao-Ching Peng5, Victor C. Kok10,11, Gao Ping Li12, Chao A. Hsiung7, Chun-Yi. Hsu13
  • 1Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, Asia University, Taichung, Taiwan
  • 2Department of Medical Research, China Medical University Hospital, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan
  • 3Taichung City Smart Transportation Big Data Research Center, Taichung, Taiwan
  • 4Pervasive Artificial Intelligence Research (PAIR) Labs, Hsinchu, Taiwan
  • 5Biomdcare Corporation, New Taipei, Taiwan
  • 6Program for Aging, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan
  • 7Institute of Population Health Sciences, National Health Research Institutes, Miaoli, Taiwan
  • 8Institute of Electrical Control Engineering, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
  • 9Department of Neurology, China Medical University Hospital, and School of Medicine, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan
  • 10Disease Informatics Research Group, Asia University, Taichung, Taiwan
  • 11Department of Internal Medicine, Kuang Tien General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan
  • 12Zhongshan Hospital, Affiliated Hospital of Fudan University, Shanghai, China
  • 13Graduate Institute of Biomedical Science, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan
* Equal contribution
Received: February 27, 2020Accepted: November 11, 2020Published: January 10, 2021
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.202299

Copyright: © 2021 Tsai et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Inflammation is considered as a key pathogenesis factor of dementia and epilepsy. However, epilepsy’s association with dementia, particularly its role in the development of dementia, remains unclear. To evaluate the association between epilepsy and the risk of dementia, in Taiwan, we have now conducted a retrospective cohort study comprising 675 individuals (age, ≥50 years) with epilepsy and 2,025 matched control subjects without epilepsy. In order to match individuals diagnosed with epilepsy with those with no diagnosis of epilepsy (comparison cohort), we utilized exact matching at a ratio of 1:3. Compared with those in the comparison cohort, individuals in the epilepsy cohort had a significantly increased risk of developing dementia (adjusted hazard ratio = 2.87, p < 0.001). A similar result has been observed after stratifying for sex (adjusted hazard ratio in males = 2.95, p < 0.001; adjusted hazard ratio in females = 2.66, p < 0.001). To conclude, based on these data, epileptic individuals ≥50 years were at a greater risk of developing dementia than people who do not have epilepsy, which indicates that a diagnosis of epilepsy presents a greater risk for the development of dementia.