Accelerated long‐term forgetting in adult patients with genetic generalized epilepsy

Objective Accelerated long‐term forgetting (ALF) has been demonstrated among children but not adults with genetic generalized epilepsy (GGE). We investigated (1) how forgetting patterns of verbal and visuospatial material differ between patients with GGE and healthy controls (HCs) and (2) whether ALF is associated with ictal or interictal epileptic activity. Methods Forty‐two patients with GGE (39, 92.9% experiencing seizures) were compared to 57 HCs in word, logical story, and Rey–Osterrieth complex figure recall tasks by testing after intervals of 30 min and 4 weeks. Ambulatory electroencephalography (EEG) was performed before testing to detect generalized epileptic activity, and patients were asked to document the number of seizures during the 4‐week interval. Results A two‐way repeated measures ANOVA indicated that individuals with GGE have different forgetting patterns in comparison to HCs in tasks of word (delay by group interaction F1.5, 142.5 = 4.5, p = .02, ηp2 = .04) and figure (F2, 194 = 15.9, p