Quality of life refers to the satisfaction an individual derives from personal roles, behaviors, achievements, opportunities, and other aspects related to personal values and expectations in the context of culture, community, and neighborhood. According to the World Health Organization definition (1996,.5), quality of life can be defined as an individual’s objective perception of his or her social position in the context of a particular culture and value system related to personal life, striving goals, expectations, ideas, and value standards. The sudden, recurrent and unpredictable nature of seizures, and the possible impairment of cognitive function and psychological burden (e.g., problems with patient shame) on patients with epilepsy have a stronger impact on patients’ quality of life than other chronic diseases. Factors such as long-term care of the patient and social discrimination likewise place a heavy financial burden and great psychological stress on his or her family. The impact of epilepsy on quality of life is mainly manifested in the following aspects: i. Physical health Frequent seizures are an independent factor affecting quality of life, and the frequency of seizures is negatively correlated with quality of life. Recurrent seizures, especially those with generalized seizures, can cause physiological damage, resulting in physical symptoms such as headache, dizziness, gastrointestinal discomfort, limb weakness, fatigue, and reduced ability to perform daily activities. The attack may also cause accidental bodily injuries, such as tongue bite, burns, burns, cranial trauma, fractures and soft tissue injuries, and even accidental death by falling from height or drowning. The correlation between psychological/psychiatric disorders and patients’ quality of life far exceeds the frequency of seizures and the severity of the disease; even after seizures are completely controlled, patients’ psychological reactions such as isolation, social isolation, discrimination and shame (stigma) can still persist. Depression is the most frequent co-occurring psychological disorder in patients with epilepsy and is an independent factor affecting the quality of life of patients with epilepsy. The prevalence of depression is three times higher in patients with recurrent epilepsy than in the general population. In patients with refractory epilepsy, the impact of depression on quality of life even exceeds the frequency and severity of seizures. Anxiety is also a frequent co-occurring psychiatric disorder in patients with epilepsy, with a prevalence twice that of the general population. Like depression, anxiety in patients with epilepsy is often underdiagnosed, not given enough attention, and not treated accordingly. In addition, patients with epilepsy often suffer from concerns about seizures, low self-esteem, frustration, shame, helplessness, despair, irritability, loss of interest in things, and poor psychological adjustment. Patients with epilepsy have a high incidence of psychiatric symptoms, including confusion, delusions, visual hallucinations, auditory hallucinations and obsessions, and can have various personality disorders, such as dependence, harshness, stubbornness and emotional instability, and their personality characteristics are to some extent associated with seizures. Cognitive function About 30-40% of patients with epilepsy have impairment in cognitive function, which is an important factor affecting the quality of life. In patients with newly diagnosed epilepsy without antiepileptic drugs, there is clear impairment in cognitive function, including impairment in word learning ability, verbal memory, situational memory, memory strategies, verbal naming, visual search ability, and psychomotor speed, with the most significant impairment in delayed word recall, while spatial structural memory, attention, and resistance to interference are unaffected. Epileptiform discharges can cause severe impairment of cognitive function. A single seizure that causes a decline in cognitive function for hours to days is called postictal cognitive impairment. Subsequent symptoms may partially recover, and the residual cognitive decline is called interictal cognitive impairment. Generalized tonic clonic seizures have the most pronounced impairment of cognitive function, followed by complex partial seizures and generalized tonic clonic seizures secondary to partial seizures with significant impairment of speech function. Some epileptic syndromes such as infantile spasms (West syndrome), Lennox-Gastaunt syndrome, and Sturge-Weber syndrome are often external manifestations of pathological changes in the brain with severe cognitive impairment. Occipital lobe epilepsy is mainly characterized by a decrease in attention and memory. Frontal lobe epilepsy is mainly a decrease in planning and executive functions, while memory functions are not affected. Temporal lobe epilepsy, on the other hand, is dominated by near and distant memory impairment. Subclinical seizures in the left (dominant) hemisphere tend to cause decreased word function, while patients with lesions in the right hemisphere show decreased ability to process nonverbal material. The higher the frequency and longer the duration of seizures the greater the impact on cognition. Early age of onset is an important factor in the poor prognosis of cognitive function. Cognitive impairment is severe in those with early onset, whereas it is mild in patients with later onset in adulthood. The longer the duration of epilepsy, the more pronounced the cognitive impairment, especially in verbal and situational memory. Antiepileptic drugs are currently the treatment of choice for epilepsy, and because medication is a long-term process, the cognitive impairment of antiepileptic drugs is of particular concern. Patients on antiepileptic drugs have a wide range of cognitive impairments, including attention, verbal memory, situational memory, spatial structural memory, word learning ability, interference resistance and psychomotor speed, with the most pronounced impairments in delayed word recall, attention and psychomotor speed. Among the conventional AEDs, carbamazepine, phenytoin sodium and sodium valproate had similar effects on cognitive function, and the effects of phenobarbital on cognitive function were greater than those of the above three; among the new AEDs, the effects of gabapentin and lamotrigine on cognitive function were less than those of carbamazepine, and the impairment of cognitive function was slightly greater for topiramate (if appropriate dose) than sodium valproate. The degree of cognitive impairment is proportional to the type of medication used and the degree of cognitive impairment in patients with epilepsy, especially in memory, attention, and psychomotor abilities. The lack of basic knowledge about epilepsy exists in different countries and cultures, including the patients themselves, their families, the general population and employers, leading to poor compliance, reduced family life satisfaction, social discrimination against epilepsy patients and poor employment of epilepsy patients, respectively. The general population of society outside of the patient has a poor understanding of epilepsy and believes that patients with epilepsy are psychologically defective. Even after epilepsy has been proven to be a neurological disorder, misunderstanding and discrimination against patients with epilepsy are still prevalent, which has a significant impact on the psycho-emotional aspects of patients. Patients with epilepsy are socially isolated due to depression and shame, which reduces their social interactions and their marriage rate is thus much lower than that of the general population. People with epilepsy also have a lower ability to receive an education and a lower level of education than the general population. In terms of employment, people with epilepsy have significantly higher unemployment rates than the general population, which may also contribute to the social isolation of people with epilepsy. People with epilepsy are also more likely to have difficulty performing their jobs, both because of their low level of education and because of social discrimination against them. In addition, the financial expenses required to treat people with epilepsy place a significant burden on the economy and families. The amount of economic expenditure depends on the age of onset, the duration of the disease, the impact of epilepsy on quality of life, and the different antiepileptic drugs, etc. More than 50% of epileptic patients in China are financially dependent on social or family support.