Studi neuroepidemiologici in Epilessia e Disturbi del Sonno

Neuroepidemiological studies on epilepsy and Restless Leg Syndrome conducted by the research group of Clinical Neurology of Ferrara are presented in the thesis. The first part of the work is dedicated to epidemiology of epilepsy. We made a study in order to calculate incidence rates in children and adult population in the District of Ferrara. We first investigate children population under fifteen years in order to estimate the incidence of epilepsy from 1996 to 2005; we estimated an overall annual rate of 46,4 cases x 100.000 inhabitants/year (95% C.I. 36.7-57-9). The second study calculated incidence of epilepsy in adult population over fifteen from 2007 to 2008. We found 125 incident cases with an overall annual rate of 45.7 cases x 100.000 inhabitants/year (95% C.I. 38.2-54.7). The second part of the thesis focus on epidemiology of Restless leg Syndrome (RLS). Pregnancy is a significant risk factor for transient form of RLS, we present a long-term follow-up study which investigate whether transient RLS during pregnancy represents a risk factor for later development of the syndrome. Women who experienced the transient pregnancy-RLS form showed a significant increased risk of developing a chronic form of the disease (O.R. 3.9, 95% CI: 1,7-9,4) and for a new transient symptomatology in a future pregnancy (O.R. 44,8; 95% CI: 6,2-98.1).