A Retrospective Study on the Prognosis of Aged Patients with Epilepsy

SUMMARY A retromective follow‐up study on the prognosis of 90 patients with epilepsy above 40 vears of age has resulted in:1 In the aged patients, the duration of epilepsv (mean: 23 years) was longer than the period of treatment they underwent (mean: 14 vears). The delayed commencement and/or interrupted medication alons with the patients' incompliance of taking drugs accounted for the main reasons for at least 70% of the patients. 2 The :partial epilepsy (80%) especially with complex symptomatology (55%) were predominating in the aged, group. And also, that the tonic‐clonic seizures were liable to convert to the complex partial seizures in their thirties and forties, was found in this study. 3 Although almost all the patients (97%) had more or less clinical attacks even at the time of survey, 75% or more decrease in seizure frequency have been exerted for one and a half year, regardless of the seizure types in the majority of the patients (81%). This seems to offer an explanation that an appropriate socio medical strategy is necessitated for patients with long‐standing epilepsies.