Aspects of Oral Language, Speech, and Written Language in Subjects with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy of Difficult Control

Abstract

Introduction About 50 million people have epilepsy and 30% of them have epilepsy that does not respond to properly conducted drug treatment.

Objective Verify the incidence of language disorders in oral language, speech, and written language of subjects with difficult to control temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and compare the occurrence of these disorders in subjects before and after surgery.

Methods Cross-sectional study with quantitative analysis, exploratory type. A questionnaire for data collection was administered covering the following aspects: oral language, speech complaints, and writing production and comprehension. Criteria for inclusion of subjects were a diagnosis of TLE refractory to drug treatment and at least 4 years of schooling.

Results The sample of 63 patients with TLE was divided into two groups: presurgical (n = 31) and postsurgical (n = 32). In the postsurgical group, there was a higher frequency of left lobectomy (75%) than right (25%).

Conclusion Statistical analysis was performed with the chi-square test (significance level of 0.05). Complaints related to speech-language attention were more predominant in postsurgical subjects. Analysis of oral language, speech, and written language in subjects with epilepsy who underwent temporal lobectomy or not showed findings consistent with symptoms related to transient aphasia, with the presence of paraphasias, as well as changes in speech prosody and melody. These symptoms appeared more associated with recurrence after having a temporal lobectomy.

Keywords

epilepsy - language - reading - speech-language and hearing sciences

• References

• 1 Epilepsy WHO. Epilepsy. Available at: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs999/en/index.html . Accessed May 26, 2012
• 2 Damasceno BP, Mitidieri ACH. Percepção do tempo em pacientes com epilepsia submetidos a lobectomia temporal anteromedial. Relatório Fapesp. Campinas SP, Brazil: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP); 2013
• 3 Bonelli SB, Thompson PJ, Yogarajah M , et al. Imaging language networks before and after anterior temporal lobe resection: results of a longitudinal fMRI study. Epilepsia 2012; 53 (4) 639-650
• 4 Tracy JI, Osipowicz K, Godofsky S , et al. An investigation of implicit memory through left temporal lobectomy for epilepsy. Neurobiol Learn Mem 2012; 98 (3) 272-283
• 5 Lambon RMA, Ehsan S, Baker GA, Rogers TT. Semantic memory is impaired in patients with unilateral anterior temporal lobe resection for temporal lobe epilepsy. Brain. J Neurol 2012; 135 (1) 242-258
• 6 Binder JR, Swanson SJ, Sabsevitz DS, Hammeke TA, Raghavan M, Mueller WM. A comparison of two fMRI methods for predicting verbal memory decline after left temporal lobectomy: language lateralization versus hippocampal activation asymmetry. Epilepsia 2010; 51 (4) 618-626
• 7 Wagner K, Uherek M, Horstmann S , et al. Memory outcome after hippocampus sparing resections in the temporal lobe. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 2013; 84 (6) 630-636
• 8 Protzner AB, McAndrews MP. Network alterations supporting word retrieval in patients with medial temporal lobe epilepsy. J Cogn Neurosci 2011; 23 (9) 2605-2619
• 9 Jensen EJ, Hargreaves IS, Pexman PM, Bass A, Goodyear BG, Federico P. Abnormalities of lexical and semantic processing in left temporal lobe epilepsy: an fMRI study. Epilepsia 2011; 52 (11) 2013-2021
• 10 Hamberger MJ, Seidel WT, McKhann II GM, Goodman RR. Hippocampal removal affects visual but not auditory naming. Neurology 2010; 74 (19) 1488-1493
• 11 Schwarz M, Pauli E. Postoperative speech processing in temporal lobe epilepsy: functional relationship between object naming, semantics and phonology. Epilepsy Behav 2009; 16 (4) 629-633
• 12 Tivarus ME, Starling SJ, Newport EL, Langfitt JT. Homotopic language reorganization in the right hemisphere after early left hemisphere injury. Brain Lang 2012; 123 (1) 1-10
• 13 Moser DC, Papanicolaou AC, Swank P, Breier JI. Evidence for the solidarity of the expressive and receptive language systems: a retrospective study. J Int Neuropsychol Soc 2011; 17 (1) 62-68
• 14 Pirmoradi M, Béland R, Nguyen DK, Bacon BA, Lassonde M. Language tasks used for the presurgical assessment of epileptic patients with MEG. Epileptic Disord 2010; 12 (2) 97-108
• 15 Noppeney U, Price CJ, Duncan JS, Koepp MJ. Reading skills after left anterior temporal lobe resection: an fMRI study. Brain 2005; 128 (Pt 6): 1377-1385
• 16 Peters AS, Rémi J, Vollmar C, Gonzalez-Victores JA, Cunha JP, Noachtar S. Dysprosody during epileptic seizures lateralizes to the nondominant hemisphere. Neurology 2011; 77 (15) 1482-1486
• 17 Rzezak P, Fuentes D, Guimarães CA, Guerreiro M, Valente KDR. A Disfunção do Lobo Frontal em Crianças e Adolescentes com Epilepsia de Lobo Temporal e sua Possível Correlação com a Ocorrência de Transtornos Psiquiátricos. J Epilepsy Clinical Neurophysiol 2005; 11 (3) 131-136
• 18 Guimarães CA, Min LL, Rzezak P. Memory impairment in children with temporal lobe epilepsy: a review. J Epilepsy Clinical Neurophysiol 2006; 12 (1) 22-25
• 19 Trebuchon-Da Fonseca A, Guedj E, Alario FX , et al. Brain regions underlying word finding difficulties in temporal lobe epilepsy. Brain 2009; 132 (Pt 10) 2772-2784
• 20 Bartha L, Trinka E, Ortler M , et al. Linguistic deficits following left selective amygdalohippocampectomy: a prospective study. Epilepsy Behav 2004; 5 (3) 348-357
• 21 Sabsevitz DS, Swanson SJ, Hammeke TA , et al. Use of preoperative functional neuroimaging to predict language deficits from epilepsy surgery. Neurology 2003; 60 (11) 1788-1792
• 22 Powell HW, Parker GJ, Alexander DC , et al. Imaging language pathways predicts postoperative naming deficits. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 2008; 79 (3) 327-330
• 23 Hamberger MJ, Seidel WT, McKhann II GM, Perrine K, Goodman RR. Brain stimulation reveals critical auditory naming cortex. Brain 2005; 128 (Pt 11) 2742-2749
• 24 Busch NA, Groh-Bordin C, Zimmer HD, Herrmann CS. Modes of memory: early electrophysiological markers of repetition suppression and recognition enhancement predict behavioral performance. Psychophysiology 2008; 45 (1) 25-35
• 25 Yancey SW, Phelps EA. Functional neuroimaging and episodic memory: a perspective. J Clin Exp Neuropsychol 2001; 23 (1) 32-48
• 26 Dickerson BC, Eichenbaum H. The episodic memory system: neurocircuitry and disorders. Neuropsychopharmacology 2010; 35 (1) 86-104
• 27 Oliveira GNM, Kummer A, Salgado JV, Marchetti Rl, Teixeira AL. Transtornos Neuropsiquiátricos da Epilepsia do Lobo Temporal. Rev Bras Neurol 2009; 45 (1) 15-23
• 28 Hendriks MPH, Aldenkamp AP, Alpherts WC, Ellis J, Vermeulen J, van der Vlugt H. Relationships between epilepsy-related factors and memory impairment. Acta Neurol Scand 2004; 110 (5) 291-300
• 29 Hötting K, Katz-Biletzky T, Malina T, Lindenau M, Bengner T. Long-term versus short-term memory deficits for faces in temporal lobe and generalized epilepsy patients. J Int Neuropsychol Soc 2010; 16 (3) 574-578
• 30 Bell BD, Giovagnoli AR. Recent innovative studies of memory in temporal lobe epilepsy. Neuropsychol Rev 2007; 17 (4) 455-476
• 31 Butterbaugh G, Olejniczak P, Roques B , et al. Lateralization of temporal lobe epilepsy and learning disabilities, as defined by disability-related civil rights law. Epilepsia 2004; 45 (8) 963-970