THE PERFORMANCE-COMPLAINT RELATIONSHIP IN PATIENTS WITH EPILEPSY - A MATTER OF DAILY DEMANDS

Weak relationships have been reported between subjective complaints of memory deficits and memory performance in neuropsychological tests in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). This study investigated w hether the individual exposure to cognitive demands in daily life cont ributes to cancel out the performance-complain relationship in such a way that cognitive deficits are more likely experienced by patients in 'high demand' than in 'low demand' situations. Neuropsychological per formance, subjective complaints and daily demands were assessed in 57 TLE-patients 1 year after a temporal lobe surgery. Data were analyzed using non-parametric statistical techniques. Results indicated surpris ingly close relationships between subjective complaints and memory per formance in standardized tests. The highest correlations were found fo r the non-verbal memory test. Cognitive demands did not counteract thi s result. Contrary to our expectation, lower demands were associated w ith stronger subjective complaints. Cognitive demands thus appeared no t as a modulating factor that weakens the relationship between test de ficits and subjective complaints in patients with TLE. (C) 1998 Elsevi er Science B.V. All rights reserved.