Neighborhood disadvantage leads to poorer outcomes in those with focal epilepsy

Key takeaways:

• Researchers examined data of 40 adults with focal epilepsy.
• Patients from disadvantaged neighbhorhoods tended to be younger, had fewer years of formal education, and had lower personal and family income.

ORLANDO — For a small cohort of individuals with focal epilepsy, “neighborhood disadvantage” was associated with poorer cognition including learning, memory and executive function, according to a poster.

“Neighborhood deprivation is a way for us to look at community-level resources that patients may have,” Anny Reyes, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the department of neuropsychology at the University of California, San Diego, told Healio during a presentation at the American Epilepsy Society annual meeting. “We’re interested in seeing how the lack of resources impact health outcomes.”

While acknowledging that incidence and prevalence of epilepsy increases with older age, and comorbidities such as cognitive issues and socioeconomic status increase caregiver burden and health costs, Reyes and fellow researchers sought to examine associations between neighborhood disadvantage and cognition in older adults.

Their study examined 40 individuals with focal epilepsy (mean age 67.18 years; 52.5% women, 82.5% white; average age of onset 44.62 years) from centers in Madison, Wisconsin, San Diego and Cleveland.

All participants completed a full work-up of neuropsychological testing, including clinical and sociodemographic information, and their data was plugged into the Area Deprivation Index (ADI), a neighborhood atlas created by the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. Values for the index range from one to 10 with higher values indicating greater disadvantage. The study population was subsequently divided into ADI of less than seven and seven or higher.

According to results, a significant association was found between greater neighborhood disadvantage and poorer cognitive scores for a range of patient data including learning, memory, executive function and processing speed. The researchers also noted that neighborhood disadvantage has been associated with a greater risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

A total of 30% of the study population registered an ADI greater than six, suggesting overall neighborhood disadvantage.

Additionally, those who had a higher ADI tended to be younger, had fewer years of formal education, lower personal income and lower family income.

“As institutions and hospitals look into their patients’ clinical records; (for those) who live in neighborhoods that are disadvantaged, they can try to connect them to resources and support,” Reyes told Healio.