Predicting and preventing psychopathology following temporal lobe epilepsy surgery

Getting the best outcomes from epilepsy surgery

“…De novo psychiatric problems are associated with a preoperative history of secondary generalized tonic–clonic seizures 107. The incidence of new psychogenic nonepileptic seizures following epilepsy surgery is estimated at 4%, being higher (8.5%) in females with a psychiatric history 111, 112…”

A prospective study contrasting the psychiatric outcome in drug‐resistant epilepsy between patients who underwent surgery and a control group

“…20,25,28,29 They suggested that limbic dysfunction could lead to early postsurgical mood disturbances. 30 However, other options such as individual time variability, as we observed in our study, should also have been considered as an explanatory alternative and even more so after beholding our favorable results on psychiatric disturbances after surgery.…”

Anxiety disorders in people with epilepsy

“…This could also explain that another study showed reduced levels of depression but not anxiety 12 months after temporal lobe surgery (Reuber et al, 2004). According to a recent review, there may, however, be an at least intermittent increase in anxiety post-operatively (Cleary et al, 2013). A study showing that anxiety symptoms negatively correlated with the remnant hippocampal volume in left-sided temporal lobe resections has some weaknesses as it does not provide sufficient information on pre-operative psychiatric comorbidity or pre-operative brain imaging (Paparrigopoulos et al, 2008).…”

“…Epilepsy surgery, vice versa, may improve preexisting anxiety symptoms especially when seizure freedom could be achieved (Meldolesi et al, 2007, Devinsky et al, 2005, Cleary et al, 2013. Anxiety has been shown to decrease slowly indicating that it may have something to do with a gradual accommodation to the changes in life provoked by surgery (Meldolesi et al, 2007).…”