Neuropsychological functions in idiopathic occipital lobe epilepsy

Purpose. Despite the benign prognoses of idiopathic partial epilepsies, par ticularly regarding the response of seizures to treatment, some evidence no w exists that patients with such disorders may have subtle neuropsychologic al deficits. This study was designed to investigate several modalities of n europsychological functioning in a group of 21 patients, ranging from 6 to 14 years of age, with idiopathic occipital lobe epilepsy (IOLE). The case p atients were compared with 21 healthy controls matched for age, sex, and so cioeconomic status. Methods. A battery of age-appropriate neuropsychological tests was administ ered individually to all the participants. Tests were chosen on the basis o f age-appropriate norms, their ability to represent a wide variety of funct ional domains, and their appropriateness in a cross-cultural setting. The t ests were selected to measure functioning in six domains: intellectual func tioning, attention, memory, academic achievement, visual-motor functioning, and executive functioning; some were further subdivided by their verbal-ve rsus-visual modality of functioning. Results: The results revealed no significant difference in basic neurophysi ological functions between the patient and control groups, although the cas e patients' performance scores were lower in attention (p < 0.01) and memor y (p < 0.01), as well as in intellectual Functioning (p < .05). Conclusions: The possibility of subtle cognitive deficits in IOLE patients should always be considered, though further studies are necessary to elabor ate their precise and long-term effects.