ABSTRACT
The rich literature dealing with different aspects of neuropsychological assessment in epilepsy stems particularly from the need to evaluate patients carefully prior to neurosurgical treatment of their seizures (see Chapter 4). For patients not being considered for neurosurgery, a neuropsychological assessment of a patient with epilepsy is most likely to focus on the delineation of the person!s intellectual strengths and weaknesses, with respect to a particular brain lesion, possibly evaluating potential cognitive deterioration (Goldstein 1991). The need may remain, in the absence of good neuroimaging data, to corroborate evidence gained from electroencephalograms (EEGs) with neuropsychological data to predict the location of an epileptic focus. The difficulties in making such predictions will be discussed below. In addition, the factors that may affect neuropsychological performance will be discussed, and suggestions will be made for developing a testing protocol.
