Daytime sleepiness in epileptic patients on long-term monotherapy: MSLT, clinical and psychometric assessment

A multiparametric investigation of daytime sleepiness was carried out in 10 patients with a generalized epilepsy treated by phenobarbital, 10 with a cryptogenic partial epilepsy treated by carbamazepine and 10 healthy controls. After a standard ambulatory night-time polysomnography, an objective and subjective estimate of daytime sleepiness was made in each subject by means of the Multiple Sleep Latency Test (MSLT) and visual analogue rating scale (VARS), respectively. Furthermore, a parallel assessment of mood and cognitive tasks involving attention and psychomotor speed was also carried out. The data show that patients on chronic treatment with phenobarbital have a greater daytime sleep tendency and they show a worse score at the digit symbol substitution test, than patients on carbamazepine and healthy controls.