Abstract
Introduction: Many cognitive side effects that affect sleep, attention and recall of information in epileptic children were reported. Because it is a critical age in development of cognitive functions, its vital to know how to choose a safe anti-epileptic treatment.
Aim: In this review the literature about cognitive side effects of AEDs was searched to identify drugs which have a significant cognitive side effects in children.
Methods: The MEDLINE search was conducted after construction of search strategy. The study should be a clinical trial published in the period 2008-2018 and aimed to identify side effects of AEDs to be eligible in the review. The full texts of the eligible studies were read by to investigators to ensure they were met inclusion criteria. The data about characteristics of the included studies, used AEDs and their side effects were extracted using data extraction tables.
Results: The search of the literature resulted in 69 studies and after exclusion of irrelevant, duplicated and review studies, 8 studies found to meet the inclusion criteria. Levetiracetam was investigated in four included studies, while other studied AEDs were perampanel, lacosamide, rufinamide, and topiramate. The most common cognitive side effect reported by the included studies was somnolence, followed by dizziness, nervousness, and aggression.
Conclusion: These new anti-epileptic drugs showed good tolerability profile in term of cognitive side effects, particularly lacosamide and perampanel. The age of children is the major determinant of the side effects associated with AEDs.