Depression in patients with epilepsy: screening, diagnosis and management

Abstract

Depression is the most frequent psychiatric comorbidity in epilepsy patients with a considerable impact on quality of life and a poor prognosis for the response to pharmacological and surgical treatments. The relationship between depression and epilepsy is bidirectional, involving common pathophysiogenic mechanisms. Despite its frequency and its negative impact on the natural course of the epileptic disease, depression is still underdiagnosed and insufficiently treated in these patients. This may be due to the lack of specific training of neurologists for the detection and management of psychiatric comorbidities, or even to the atypical clinical presentation of depressive symptoms in these patients. The management of depression in epileptics is both pharmacological and non-pharmacological, the main objective being to achieve complete remission of depressive symptoms without reducing seizure threshold. This article aims to describe the epidemiological, clinical and therapeutic aspects of depression in patients with epilepsy, in the light of the most recent data in the literature.