[Rehabilitation of young craniopharyngioma patients]

The course of rehabilitation in 11 young patients with craniopharyngeoma was investigated. With intelligence well-preserved, neuropsychological diagnosis revealed impairments in rate and persistence in virtually all patients; behaviour disorders were present in 8 of the 11 patients, with efforts to distinguish psychoorganic from psychoreactive causality however not always successful. The neuropsychological deficits and behavioural deviations mentioned, rather than complications of a medical nature (1 of 11), resulted in only 2 patients having been able to maintain their premorbid educational/vocational status. The rehabilitative outcomes obtained in patients with clear-cut indications of diencephalic lesion (among them variations in vigilance, polyphagia, adipsia) had been unsatisfactory, whereas, in the other behaviourally disordered patients, successful outcomes were achieved by a therapeutic approach tailored to the specific needs of the individual condition.