Postictal language testing in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy: a preliminary study / 中华神经科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective Postictal language testing can provide useful diagnostic information for seizure lateralization.However no such a study based on non-English language was done previously.We investigated the latency of language recovery in Chinese patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE).Methods Complex partial seizures in patients with TLE were extracted from our video-electroencephalogram (EEG) database.For all patients,consciousness testing started as soon as seizures were detected.When they were alert and cooperative,they were asked to read out a sentence “昨晚他们听到老在电台里讲话”which was printed on a card.When the patients were able to read the sentence correctly,the language function was considered recovered.Results Totally 65 complex partial seizures from 22 cases of TLE (11 left and 11 right) were included.Patients were cooperative to language testing in 54 seizures (83％).The latency for consciousness recovery (CRL) and latency for consciousness language recovery (LRL) were not associated with seizure duration,but the seizure lateralization.The CRL (median,161 s) and LRL (281 s) in the left TLE were statistically significantly longer than that in the right TLE (30 s,54 s respectively).Using 150 s recovery time as bound language recovery ratio was 87％ (27/31) in right TLE and 13％ (3/23) in left TLE.Conclusion Postictal language testing based on ideographic Chinese words helps to establish seizure lateralization in patients with TLE.