The Role of Emotional Intelligence in Community Integration and Return to Work After Acquired Brain Injury.

Objective: To investigate whether emotional intelligence (EI) skills measured via the Perceiving, Understanding, and Managing Emotions branches of the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test V2.0 are associated with community integration (CI) and return to work (RTW) after moderate-to-severe acquired brain injury (ABI), after accounting for other established predictors.

Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Assessment of emotion processing skills in acquired brain injury using an ability-based test of emotional intelligence.

Social and emotional problems are commonly reported after moderate to severe acquired brain injury (ABI) and pose a significant barrier to rehabilitation. However, progress in assessment of emotional skills has been limited by a lack of validated measurement approaches. This study represents the first formal psychometric evaluation of the use of the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) V2.

Current challenges in the practice of epilepsy surgery.

The accurate prediction of individual outcomes after epilepsy surgery represents a key challenge facing clinicians. It requires a precise understanding of surgical candidacy and the optimal timing of surgery to maximize a range of outcomes, including medical, psychosocial, cognitive, and psychiatric outcomes. We promote careful consideration of how epilepsy has affected an individual's developmental trajectory as key to constructing more differentiated profiles of postsurgical risk or resilience across multiple outcome measures.

Profiling the evolution of depression after epilepsy surgery.

Purpose: Both neurobiologic and psychosocial factors have been proposed to account for the high prevalence of depression surrounding epilepsy surgery. Using a prospective longitudinal approach, this study aimed to profile the evolution of depression after epilepsy surgery at multiple time points, including early and longer-term follow-up. We also sought to identify neurobiologic and psychosocial predictors of depression before and after surgery, including whether patients undergoing mesial temporal lobe resection (MTR) were at greater risk of depression than patients undergoing nonmesial temporal lobe resection (NMTR).

Differential contributions of objective memory and mood to subjective memory complaints in refractory focal epilepsy.

People with epilepsy frequently present with bitter memory complaints. Previous research variously attributes this to symptoms of mood disturbance or objective memory deficits. To investigate the influence of the epileptogenic region on this variability, we examined interrelationships between mood, objective memory, and memory complaints in a sample of patients with refractory focal epilepsy and controls (N = 96).

The amygdala and anxiety after epilepsy surgery.

The relationship between amygdalar volume and anxiety after epilepsy surgery was explored. Participants comprised patients who underwent mesial temporal (n=26) or non-mesial temporal resections (n=16) and 41 neurologically normal controls. Anxiety was prospectively measured preoperatively and for the first 12 months postoperatively using criteria from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition.

Profiles of psychosocial outcome after epilepsy surgery: the role of personality.

Purpose: We have previously found that the developmental time frame of epilepsy onset influences adult personality traits and subsequent adjustment to intractable seizures. In the same cohort of patients we now investigate the influence of these factors on psychosocial outcome after surgical treatment.

Methods: Fifty-seven adult patients with focal epilepsy were prospectively assessed before and after surgery.

Personality development in the context of intractable epilepsy.

Objectives: To investigate the developmental time frame of epilepsy onset on adult personality traits of neuroticism and extraversion and to consider their role in adjustment to intractable epilepsy.

Design: Prospective, preoperative and postoperative survey of the psychological and psychosocial effects of intractable epilepsy and its surgical treatment. Data from the preoperative phase are reported.

Characterising de novo depression after epilepsy surgery.

De novo depression is a common psychiatric sequelae of epilepsy surgery. To date, no studies have described possible clinical correlates of de novo depression in this population. This qualitative study presents a detailed analysis of five cases of de novo depression.

Mood disturbance before and after seizure surgery: a comparison of temporal and extratemporal resections.

Purpose: Mood disturbance is a common comorbid condition of temporal lobe epilepsy before and after seizure surgery. Few studies have examined mood disturbance in patients undergoing resections outside the temporal lobe (extratemporal resections). This study aimed to compare the early, postoperative evolution of mood disturbance in temporal and extratemporal lobe epilepsy patients to examine the effect of site of surgical resection on mood outcome.