Subjective memory and mood of Hong Kong Chinese adults with epilepsy

Awareness, overestimation, and underestimation of cognitive functions in epilepsy

“…Although the results of regression and correlation analyses in the entire patient group replicate the relationships of the MASQ score to neuropsychological performances [31,38,39] and mood [40,41], also reported with memory inventories [27][28][29][30][34][35][36][37], they do not clarify the discrepancies in the underlying factors affecting self-rating. By definition, these results underline the importance of using differential approaches to investigate self-rating in aware and unaware patients.…”

“…Previous studies using the MASQ in patients with TLE showed that perceived abilities were associated with objective abilities [31,38,39] or, by contrast, that self-ratings primarily reflected mood [40,41]. Other studies using memory inventories [27,29,[35][36][37] also reported inconstant correlation between perceived and objective abilities and a main influence for mood. However, no study separately analyzed aware and unaware patients.…”

“…Self-evaluation provides subjective measures, which may reflect not only everyday efficiency but also patients' affect [27]. Use of self-evaluation instruments started a few decades ago aiming to complement neuropsychological results [27][28][29], but most studies only explored perceived memory abilities, showing that subjectively impaired patients often obtained average or high scores in laboratory tests [27][28][29][30][32][33][34][35][36][37]. Seidenberg et al [38] developed the Multiple Ability Self-Report Questionnaire (MASQ), which explores five cognitive domains.…”

Subjective cognitive complaints versus objective neuropsychological performance in older adults with epilepsy

“…Factors such as older age and higher intelligence level have been associated with greater memory complaints [9] while epilepsy characteristics (e.g., seizure type, frequency, AEDs) are not consistently related to subjective memory complaints among these individuals [9,12]. Depression, which is very common among patients with epilepsy [13,14], has been consistently shown to be related to both subjective cognitive complaints [10,13,[15][16][17][18][19] and objective cognitive function [20] in this group. In fact, numerous studies in patients with epilepsy demonstrate a stronger association between subjective cognitive complaints and mood than between subjective and objective cognitive functions [15,19,21].…”

“…Depression, which is very common among patients with epilepsy [13,14], has been consistently shown to be related to both subjective cognitive complaints [10,13,[15][16][17][18][19] and objective cognitive function [20] in this group. In fact, numerous studies in patients with epilepsy demonstrate a stronger association between subjective cognitive complaints and mood than between subjective and objective cognitive functions [15,19,21]. Additionally, reduced awareness of cognitive deficits among patients with epilepsy may contribute to an underreporting of deficits and partially account for the discrepancy between objective and subjective cognitive complaints [22].…”