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Updated: May 1, 2026
Anteromesial Temporal Lobectomy for Medically Intractable Temporal Lobe Epilepsy: An Operative Study
Published on: August 15, 2025
Subjective memory evaluation before and after temporal lobe epilepsy surgery.
Chin-Wei Huang1, Brent Hayman-Abello2, Susan Hayman-Abello2
1Department of Clinical Neurological Sciences, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada; Department of Neurology, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
Subjective memory (SM) after temporal lobectomy in epilepsy patients is reliably measured by the FOF-10 scale. Postoperative SM changes were linked to emotional state and antiepileptic drug reduction, not objective memory performance.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Psychology
- Clinical Medicine
Background:
- Subjective memory (SM) is less studied in epilepsy than objective memory (OM).
- Temporal lobectomy is a common epilepsy surgery.
- Assessing SM pre- and post-surgery is crucial for patient management.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess the reliability and validity of the Frequency of Forgetting 10 scale (FOF-10) for measuring SM in epilepsy patients.
- To investigate changes in SM after temporal lobectomy.
- To explore correlations between SM, objective memory, depression, neuroticism, and antiepileptic drug (AED) load.
Main Methods:
- The FOF-10 scale was administered to 48 epilepsy patients before and one year after temporal lobectomy.
- Reliability (internal consistency, reproducibility) and validity (correlation with MAC-S) of FOF-10 were assessed.
- Correlations were analyzed between FOF-10 scores and neuropsychological memory tests, depression (CES-D), neuroticism (PANAS), word finding difficulty, AEDs, and seizure frequency.
Main Results:
- The FOF-10 demonstrated high reliability and validity in epilepsy patients.
- Postoperatively, 58% of patients showed improved or unchanged SM, while 42% worsened.
- SM changes correlated with perceived word finding difficulty and postoperative depression, but not with objective memory test scores.
- Reduced AEDs post-surgery were associated with improved SM.
- No correlation was found between SM and neuroticism, surgery side, or seizure number.
Conclusions:
- The FOF-10 is a brief, reliable tool for assessing subjective memory in epilepsy.
- Perceived memory difficulties post-temporal lobectomy are more influenced by emotional state, language issues, and AED burden than objective memory deficits.
- Findings can inform presurgical counseling and post-surgical memory management strategies.
