Dados do Trabalho

Título

Epilepsy: relationship between cognitive aspects and body mass index

Introdução

Adult patients with epilepsy (PWE) present a series of clinical, cognitive and psychiatric comorbidities, however there are gaps in the knowledge of the relationship between obesity and cognition in PWE.

Objetivo

Evaluate anthropometric indicators in PWE and relate them to quality of life (QoL) and to clinical and cognitive aspects.

Método

A total of 45 male PCEs treated at the Clinical Neurology outpatient clinic were evaluated. In PWE, measurements of body mass index (BMI) and anthropometric data were related to clinical aspects and scores from the mini mental state exam (MMSE), brief cognitive battery (BCB), hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS) and the quality of life in epilepsy inventory-31. Data from BMI and cognitive assessment of PWE were compared to a similar control group (CG) with 25 individuals, with statistical tests with p<0.05.

Resultados

The average age and schooling of PWE were 34.6 years and 6.3 years, respectively. In PWE, anxiety was observed in HADS in 23 patients and depression in 13. The performance in MMSE and BCB, in the areas of memory, perception and clock test was significantly lower in PWE when compared to CG. Overweight/obesity was observed in 26 PWE and 13 individuals in the CG, with no significant difference between the groups. There was a weak correlation between arm circumference values and BCB incidental memory scores in PWE (Pearson correlation; r=0.294; p=0.049).

Conclusão

There were overweight and obesity in high numbers in PWE. PWE present worse cognitive performance when compared to the CG. There were no significant correlations between anthropometric data and cognition, with the exception of incidental memory and arm circumference measurements. Further studies are needed to better understand the overweight/obesity relationship and the cognitive and clinical aspects of epilepsy.

Palavras-chave

epilepsy;
quality of life;
anthropometry