Psychiatric aspects of temporal lobe epilepsy before and after anterior temporal lobectomy
- aDepartment of Neurology, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, USA, bDelaware Valley Neuropsychiatric Associates, Bridgeton, NJ, USA, cDepartment of Neurology, Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, PA, USA, dDepartment of Neurosurgery, Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, PA, USA
- Dr Guila Glosser, Department of Neurology (Gates 3), University of Pennsylvania Medical Center, 3400 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104–4283, USA email glosser{at}mail.med.upenn.edu
- Received 23 February 1999
- Revised 16 July 1999
- Accepted 5 August 1999
Abstract
OBJECTIVES Psychopathology has been reported to be prevalent both before and after surgical treatment for medically intractable temporal lobe epilepsy. Individual patients were evaluated prospectively to assess the effect of anterior temporal lobectomy (ATL) on prevalence and severity of psychiatric disease.
METHODS Psychiatric status was assessed in a consecutive series of epilepsy patients before and 6 months after ATL using a structured psychiatric interview, psychiatric rating scales, and self report mood measures.
RESULTS A DSM-III-R axis I diagnosis was present in 65% of patients before and after surgery. The most common diagnoses were depression, anxiety, and organic mood/personality disorders. There was a trend for major psychiatric diagnoses to be more common in patients with right compared to left temporal lobe seizure focus, both before and after surgery. The apparent stability in the overall rate of psychiatric dysfunction concealed onset of new psychiatric problems in 31% of patients in the months shortly after surgery, and resolution of psychiatric diagnoses in 15% of patients. In the group as a whole, the severity of psychiatric symptoms was lower at 6 months postsurgery than before temporal lobectomy.
CONCLUSIONS The overall prevalence of psychiatric dysfunction was comparably high before and after ATL, but individual changes in psychiatric status and changes in severity of symptoms occurred in many patients in the 6 months after surgery.
