Mother knows best… or does she? Perceptions of the memory abilities of pediatric patients with epilepsy as reported by patients and their parents across time.

Purpose: This study compared the self-reported and parent-reported memory of children with epilepsy across time and explored the relationships between these measures of subjective memory and the children's actual performance on objective neuropsychological tests.

Method: One-hundred and nineteen children with epilepsy who were surgical candidates underwent comprehensive neuropsychological testing that included the Everyday Verbal Memory Questionnaire (EVMQ). Each child's parent and 82 of the children themselves completed the appropriate version of this subjective memory measure.

Cognitive outcomes following pediatric epilepsy surgery.

Objectives: To characterize outcomes following pediatric epilepsy surgery across a broad range of cognitive domains using empirical methods (i.e., reliable change indices: RCIs), compare these outcomes with those based on traditional methods (i.

Cognitive outcomes following frontal lobe resection for treatment of epilepsy in children and adolescents.

Objective: To use reliable change indices (RCIs) developed specifically for pediatric patients with epilepsy to examine cognitive outcomes after frontal lobe resection for pharmacoresistant epilepsy.

Methods: Forty-one pediatric patients (25 male, M = 10 years) completed comprehensive neuropsychological evaluations before and an average of 6.5 months after frontal lobe resections for treatment of epilepsy.

[Formula: see text] Reliable change in pediatric brain tumor: A preliminary investigation.

Children treated for brain tumor show evidence of declines in general intellectual abilities (i.e., IQ).

Reliable change indices and standardized regression-based change score norms for evaluating neuropsychological change in children with epilepsy.

Reliable change indices (RCIs) and standardized regression-based (SRB) change score norms permit evaluation of meaningful changes in test scores following treatment interventions, like epilepsy surgery, while accounting for test-retest reliability, practice effects, score fluctuations due to error, and relevant clinical and demographic factors. Although these methods are frequently used to assess cognitive change after epilepsy surgery in adults, they have not been widely applied to examine cognitive change in children with epilepsy. The goal of the current study was to develop RCIs and SRB change score norms for use in children with epilepsy.

Effects of surgical side and site on mood and behavior outcome in children with pharmacoresistant epilepsy.

Children with epilepsy have a high rate of mood and behavior problems; yet few studies consider the emotional and behavioral impact of surgery. No study to date has been sufficiently powered to investigate effects of both side (left/right) and site (temporal/frontal) of surgery. One hundred patients (aged 6-16) and their families completed measures of depression, anxiety, and behavioral function as part of neuropsychological evaluations before and after surgery for pharmacoresistant epilepsy.

Cognitive characteristics of PTEN hamartoma tumor syndromes.

Purpose: We sought to characterize cognition in individuals with germline PTEN mutations (n = 23) as well as in PTEN mutation-negative individuals with classic Cowden syndrome or Bannayan-Riley-Ruvalcaba syndrome (n = 2).

Methods: Twenty-five individuals completed a comprehensive neuropsychological evaluation. One sample t-tests and effect sizes were used to examine differences in participant test scores compared with normal controls.

Word-finding difficulties confound performance on verbal cognitive measures in adults with intractable left temporal lobe epilepsy.

This study sought to determine if word-finding difficulties (WFDs), which are common in adults with dominant temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), are related to performance on verbal cognitive measures, including memory. One hundred six individuals with left TLE and pathologically confirmed mesial temporal sclerosis completed comprehensive preoperative neuropsychological evaluations. Patients were divided into two groups based on the degree of benefit received from phonemic cueing on a confrontation naming task.

Longer duration of epilepsy and earlier age at epilepsy onset correlate with impaired cognitive development in infancy.

We assessed the impact of age at onset of epilepsy and duration and frequency of seizures on cognitive development in children less than 3 years old. Retrospective analysis was conducted on clinical data and neuropsychological testing of 33 infants with epilepsy. Developmental quotients were calculated and were correlated with age at epilepsy onset, duration of epilepsy, seizure frequency, brain pathology, and types of seizures (with/without spasms) as potential predictors.

Epilepsy surgery in children with electrical status epilepticus in sleep.

Objective: Pediatric epilepsy surgery candidates with unilateral congenital or early-acquired brain lesions may present with refractory seizures and generalized electroencephalographic features such as electrical status epilepticus in sleep (ESES). The purpose of our study was to review the clinical presentation, neuroimaging findings, and outcome in a series of children with unilateral brain lesions and ESES undergoing resective surgery for refractory epilepsy.

Methods: A total of 415 consecutive patients younger than 18 years of age undergoing video electroencephalographic evaluation and epilepsy surgery at Cleveland Clinic were reviewed for ESES, an underlying pathological lesion, and outcome after surgery.

Memory functioning following traumatic brain injury in children with premorbid learning problems.

This study examines the memory functioning of 25 children who sustained a traumatic brain injury (TBI) and who had prior learning problems, 48 children with TBI who did not have prior learning problems, and 23 noninjured controls. The children with TBI and prior learning problems displayed significantly worse memory abilities than both the control participants and the children with TBI and no prior learning problems. They differed significantly from these 2 groups on measures of general memory, verbal memory, sound-symbol learning, and attention.