Self-reporting of everyday memory in patients with epilepsy: relation to neuropsychological, clinical, pathological and treatment factors.

Patients with epilepsy frequently complain of memory problems, but neuropsychological tests sometimes fail to detect consistent deficits; this may be because laboratory tests are poor indicators of everyday memory problems, or because subjective memory difficulties may be provoked by a variety of factors. To address these issues, we compared 100 patients with epilepsy and 57 healthy controls by means of our Questionnaire of Memory Efficiency, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, the Self-Rating Depression Scale and a battery of tests. The Chronbach test showed the Questionnaire of Memory Efficiency to be satisfactorily reliable. Patients reported significantly greater memory difficulties and higher levels of anxiety and depression than controls. Questionnaire of Memory Efficiency scores correlated with anxiety and depression levels, as well as with memory and learning test scores and regression analysis showed that anxiety, depression and visual learning had the most consistent explanatory power. No correlation was found with clinical variables or the presence of detectable brain lesion. Patients undergoing polytherapy or treatment for long periods reported the greatest memory difficulties. These findings suggest that subjective perception of memory failure reflects objective memory impairment. However, emotional factors and low self-esteem may bloat the reporting of everyday memory difficulties. The Questionnaire of Memory Efficiency seems able to provide information about everyday memory problems in patients with epilepsy that may be useful for planning neuropsychological counselling or rehabilitation.

Trail making test: normative values from 287 normal adult controls.

The Trail Making Test (TMT), which explores visual-conceptual and visual-motor tracking, is a frequently used neuropsychological test because of its ease of administration and sensitivity to brain damage. In this paper, norms are provided for the time scores derived from parts A and B, and for the (B-A) difference. The data were collected from 287 adult Italian subjects stratified by gender, schooling and age (from 20 to 79 years). The test scores were affected by age, education and general intelligence (as expressed by Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices). Only for part A did females have longer time scores than males. Test-retest reliability was high for each score.

[Heart transplant: an emotional storm for the child and his family]. / Il trapianto cardiaco: una tempesta emotiva sul bambino e la sua famiglia.

The purpose of the present study was a psychological analysis of the emotional state of a family awaiting heart transplantation. Current practice suggests that such emotional reaction is characterized by mixed and contradictory feelings which require further investigation. Subjects were 5 children waiting for transplant and 5 with previous transplant. Methods were: 1) open interview with children and parents; 2) projective drawing test for children (Corman family test, H.T.P., L.A.D.S., M.U.C.T., K.F.D.); 3) "palinomas" questionnaire which investigates: awareness of the illness, child relation with the food, feelings of competence and control, self-esteem and perception of the self. "Palinomas" was created in Italy by a hospital psychological team in order to give a chance to the child to talk about himself and to maintain control over the situation. The information we obtained by "palinomas" revealed to be very useful to understand the personality of the child through the main areas reported above. Within the limits of an introductory study, results indicate that family needs an active psychological support in order to develop a more positive attitude.