Alzheimer’s disease is known to be associated with seizures and epilepsy. A new study confirms this link and also reveals that people with a certain type of epilepsy are also at high risk of developing Alzheimer’s.
“Our research found that not only are people with Alzheimer’s disease more likely to develop epilepsy, but also that those with focal epilepsy, which accounts for more than half of all cases of epilepsy, were more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease,” according to Jiali Pu, PhD, of Zhejiang University School of Medicine in China, and colleagues.
People with focal epilepsy with hippocampal sclerosis have nearly four times the relative odds of receiving an Alzheimer’s diagnosis, they reported.
In an examination of gene variation, the researchers also tied Alzheimer’s to a 5.3% increased risk of generalized epilepsy that involves both halves of the brain, and a 1.3% increased odds of focal epilepsy with hippocampal sclerosis, which affects one half of the brain.
“More effort should be made to screen for seizures in people with Alzheimer’s disease and to understand the impact of seizures on those facing these two challenging neurologic conditions,” Pu said.
The study was published in the journal Neurology.
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