Epilepsy in the elderly differs from that in younger people. It is an important and increasingly common clinical problem. Old age is the most common time to develop seizures and around 25% of new cases of epilepsy occur in elderly people. In people of 70 years and above, the prevalence of epilepsy has been estimated two times more to compered with the general population. The epidemiological studies showed that the value of incidence and prevalence in elderly epilepsy are similar in many countries. About one-half of cases of epilepsy in elderly cannot be linked to an identifitable cause, in the rest – 33% cerebrovascular disturbances, 12% dementia. In the elderly partial epilepsy dominated on tonic-clonic seizures. In connection to elongation of average age of population in Poland the number of the elderly epilepsy will be increase. Especially of the number of ischemic stroke in connection with epilepsy is typical in this age. To realize of scale of this problem the author according to the generally accepted the value of prevalence and incidence of epilepsy estimates suitable accounts with reference to our country.

elderly epilepsy, epidemiological aspects, post-stroke epilepsy, differential diagnosis, therapy