Current Psychiatry Reports

, Volume 5, Issue 5, pp 410–416 | Cite as

Complex partial seizures and depression

  • Brian A. Greenlee
  • Richard B. Ferrell
  • Christopher I. Kauffman
  • Thomas W. McAllister
Article

Abstract

A long-recognized association exists between epilepsy and affective disturbance, especially depression. People with complex partial seizures that result from temporal lobe seizure foci are highly vulnerable to psychiatric disorders. Accurate diagnosis of such disorders is an important key to treatment. Interictal depression or dysphoria is the most clinically significant problem of this type. Pharmacotherapeutic treatments that have positive effects in other types of depressive illness are also effective for depression associated with epilepsy. Electroconvulsive therapy is helpful to some patients with depression that is refractory to drug treatment or psychotherapy. Surgical resection of seizure foci may lead to psychiatric improvement for some individuals, but can also have psychiatric complications.

Keywords

Depressive Symptom Major Depressive Disorder Gabapentin Lamotrigine Temporal Lobe Epilepsy 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Current Science Inc 2003

Authors and Affiliations

  • Brian A. Greenlee
  • Richard B. Ferrell
    • 1
  • Christopher I. Kauffman
  • Thomas W. McAllister
  1. 1.Department of PsychiatryDartmouth Medical School, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical CenterLebanonUSA

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