Little is known about cognitive functioning of older adults with chronic partial epilepsy. We examined cognitive performance of this epilepsy patient group over 2-3 years. Seventeen older adults with epilepsy and 17 healthy older adults were administered measures of overall cognition and verbal memory at baseline and 2-3 years later. At baseline, older adults with epilepsy performed below controls on overall cognition and verbal memory (p's < 0.001). These deficits generally remained stable at follow-up, although executive control appeared to decline (p < 0.05). Older adults with epilepsy showed a failure to benefit from practice on a verbal memory measure (p = 0.017). Older adults with epilepsy demonstrated cognitive deficits that generally are not progressive. A failure to benefit from repeat exposure to a Delayed Recall task could indicate learning deficits. These patients may also progressively lose executive control, possibly as a result of accelerated aging. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
