Speech and Memory Assessment in Psychomotor Epileptics

Thirty post-lobectomy patients operated on for relief of seizures due to temporal lobe epilepsy and six patients who had had implantation of depth electrodes only were assessed in terms of their speech and memory abilities. The results from two subtests of the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination show no significant group differences on speech tests. On the other hand, patients with left or dominant temporal lobectomies showed a greater memory deficit than those operated upon on the right or nondominant side. This difference was apparent on tests of both recent verbal memory and long-term memory.