| Abstract [eng] |
This doctoral dissertation aimed to evaluate cognitive functions, social cognition and emotional state of people with epilepsy in the context of demographical, clinical and other variables. A cross-sectional trial including one-hundred eleven participants of whom 81 had epilepsy was conducted. Each participant underwent detailed cognitive evaluation, including tests of attention, working memory, executive functions, verbal fluency, verbal and non-verbal memory emotion recognition and theory of mind tests. The results were compared between patients with epilepsy and healthy controls. Further, results of patient with epilepsy were analyzed in the context of their demographical, and clinical characteristics. This study showed that people with epilepsy have worse cognitive functions than healthy controls. However, no significant differences among patients with different types of epilepsy were found. Higher education and female sex were linked to better performance in certain cognitive domains while longer duration of epilepsy, frequent seizures, depression, multiple antiseizure medications and presence of MRI lesions were associated with worse cognitive functioning. In addition, social cognition was linked to the measures of quality of life. Finally, higher education was estimated by better social cognition while no such association with job and family status was detected. |
