Hi Anwar,
Fighting the onset of dementia amongst us using AEDs has no universally agreed upon strategy by the medical community. But, in addition to drugs, I feel cardiovascular exercise (walking, biking) can offer some help too. These activities have an impact both on our physiological & psychological brain activities. And even doing crossword puzzles is considered a good exercise for all people, epileptic or not, to avoid brain dementia.

Short answer no... but long answer uncertain. At the moment there's no real evidence that it does. There's still alot that is unknown.

@LawenceLucas I found with Carbamazepine the stronger the dosage the worse the memory loss got. It's hard to say what my memory loss is like atm because I have been completely off Carbamazepine for almost 3 months.

@A MyEpilepsyTeam Member Remember that for dementia to happen you basically have to have known consistent shrinkage of the brain. There is an increased risk with Carbamazepine in old age but whether it is due to this exactly I'm not sure. However, I do know that you are at a higher risk of dizziness and unsteadiness which basically increases the risk of falls. In saying this though a lot of AED meds pose this risk to the elderly.

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Potential detrimental effects (see link at the bottom). Some people with Epilepsy will regress to Dementia because they are connected and all of us with Epilepsy have an increased level beyond the ordinary person to develop Dementia. If you look in the research section of this site, then you can find the article about this connection.

And here is an article from the National Library of Medicine on the subject (published research): The cognitive impact of antiepileptic drugs

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC32...