The purpose of our study was to determine the willingness to be vaccinated against COVID-19 and factors associated with vaccine hesitancy among people with epilepsy (PWE). In December 2020, we performed an online cross-sectional survey of PWE and their caregivers in Lithuania before the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines to the public. The study sample consisted of 111 respondents (44 (39.6%) male, median age 25 years (range 1 to 70)). From 58 PWE who personally responded to the survey, 27 (46.6%) would be willing to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Among the 53 caregivers, 18 (34.0%) would accept the person they care for to be vaccinated. Willingness to be vaccinated was associated with receiving an influenza shot in 2020 (odds ratio (OR) = 9.17, 95% confidence interval (CI = 1.15–73.47), the beliefs that vaccines are generally safe (OR = 7.90, 95% CI = 2.43–25.74) and that they are the only convenient way to gain immunity (OR = 3.91, 95% CI = 1.02–15.05). Respondents were hesitant to accept the COVID-19 vaccine if they thought it could cause the infection (OR = 0.14, 95% CI = 0.04–0.49). COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is frequent among PWE and their caregivers. It is probably related to erroneous beliefs about their safety and mechanism of action.

The purpose of our study was to explore health changes among people with epilepsy (PWE) during a national COVID-19 lockdown in the context of patients' clinical characteristics and their experience of receiving epilepsy-related medical services. Methods: A questionnaire was distributed for adult PWE both online and at a tertiary epilepsy center after the end of a national lockdown in Lithuania. PWE were asked to evaluate their health status during the lockdown and estimate changes in their seizure patterns. Additional questions concerned the accessibility and quality of epilepsy-related consultations. Results: The study sample consisted of 143 PWE (59 [41.3%] male, mean age 35.1 ± 13.4 years), 94 (65.7%) completed the survey in person, 49 (34.3%)-online. A deterioration in reported physical and mental health during lockdown was observed (Z = À4.604, p < 0.0001 and Z = À4.253, p < 0.0001, respectively) and 22 (15.4%) PWE reported seizure exacerbation. In an ordinal logistic regression model (analysis of data from all participants), baseline seizure frequency (b = 0.413, p = 0.031), reported physical health before lockdown (b = À0.462, p = 0.031) and the ease of proper antiepileptic drug (AED) use during the imposed restrictions (b = À0.535, p = 0.006) were statistically significant variables associated with changes in seizure frequency. The latter were not affected by modifications in AED use (Mann-Whitney U = 1127.0, p = 0.307) irrespective of the data collection method. With teleconsultations being predominant during the lockdown, an overall decline in the quality of epilepsy-related consultations was observed (Z = À2.895, p = 0.004). Among all participants, 46 (32.2%) lost an epilepsy-related consultation or medical service because of the lockdown. This loss was found to be associated with seizure exacerbation (Mann-Whitney U = 1622.5, p = 0.046). Conclusion: Our study indicates that a national COVID-19 lockdown may have led to worse seizure control and health status in some PWE. Easy access to AEDs and their appropriate use may be especially useful to prevent seizure exacerbation during strict COVID-19 restrictions. The quality and accessibility of remote epilepsy-related consultations was suboptimal and may require further improvement during disruption of in-person services.

Accelerated long-term forgetting (ALF) is a memory disorder that manifests by a distinct pattern of normal memory for up to an hour after learning, but an increased rate of forgetting during the subsequent hours and days. The topic of ALF has gained much attention in group studies with epilepsy patients and the phenomenon has been shown to have contradictory associations with seizures, epileptiform activity, imaging data, sleep, and antiepileptic medication. The aim of this review was to explore how clinical and imaging data could help determine the topographic and physiological substrate of ALF, and what is the possible use of this information in the clinical setting. We have reviewed 51 group studies in English to provide a synthesis of the existing findings concerning ALF in epilepsy. Analysis of recently reported data among patients with temporal lobe epilepsy, transient epileptic amnesia, and generalized and extratemporal epilepsies provided further indication that ALF is likely a disorder of late memory consolidation. The spatial substrate of ALF might be located along the parts of the hippocampal–neocortical network and novel studies reveal the increasingly possible importance of damage in extrahippocampal sites. Further research is needed to explore the mechanisms of cellular impairment in ALF and to develop effective methods of care for patients with the disorder.

Mental health issues—anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation and behavior—are prevalent among students of higher education. The COVID-19 pandemic further affected students’ daily life through academic and socioeconomic disturbances. We set out to investigate students’ mental health amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and conducted a cross-sectional online survey at higher education institutions in Lithuania in 2021. The questionnaire consisted of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale (HADS) and the Sense of Coherence scale (SOC-3) questionnaires, evaluation of suicidal risk, experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic and self-rated health status (SRHS). Among 1001 students who completed the survey, the prevalence of clinically relevant anxiety was high (46.6%) and contrasted with the lower prevalence of depression (11.1%). 37.5% of all students admitted that they had thought about suicide at least once during their lifetime and a similar number of students thought about suicide during the previous year. High levels of anxiety and depression were statistically significant predictors of suicidal ideation and planning during the past year in binary regression models. High SRHS (higher score refers to more positive health status) was the only significant independent variable associated with less frequent suicidal attempts in the past year (p < 0.01, OR = 0.29, 95% CI = 0.12 to 0.66). Our study highlights anxiety and suicidality to be burdensome mental health issues among higher education students in Lithuania during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We aimed to assess whether high school students’ sleep quality, mental health and learning changed during the COVID-19 pandemic as adolescents transitioned from learning online back to studying in person. We conducted an anonymous online cross-sectional survey study at three competitive high schools in Vilnius, Lithuania, after they were reopened. Students provided subjective views on their study quality, their health as well as daily life while studying either virtually or in person and completed the Beck depression inventory (BDI), the Generalized anxiety scale-7 (GAD-7) and the Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI). Among 628 (70.4% female) respondents, 268 (42.7%), 342 (54.5%) and 398 (63.4%) are suspected to have depression, an anxiety disorder or poor sleep, respectively. Students reported better study quality (Z = −12.435, p < 0.001) and physical health (Z = −9.176, p < 0.001), but worse sleep quality (Z = −19.489, p < 0.001), shorter sleep duration (Z = −19.509, p < 0.001) and worse self-reported mental health (Z = −2.220, p < 0.05) while learning in person. However, higher scores of in-person study quality and physical health were associated with lower depression and anxiety levels as well as better sleep. Our study suggests that the reopening of schools may exacerbate sleep and mental health-related issues among high school students but also be beneficial for their academic development and levels of physical activity.