Robotic assessment of sensorimotor and cognitive deficits in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy

Individuals with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) frequently demonstrate impairments in executive function, working memory, and/or declarative memory. It is recommended that screening for cognitive impairment is undertaken in all people newly diagnosed with epilepsy. However, standard neuropsychological assessments are a limited resource and thus not available to all. Our study investigated the use of robotic technology (the Kinarm robot) for cognitive screening.

27 participants with TLE (17 left) underwent both a brief neuropsychological screening and a robotic (Kinarm) assessment. The degree of impairments and correlations between standardized scores from both approaches to assessments were analysed across different neurocognitive domains. Performance was compared between people with left and right TLE to look for laterality effects. Finally, the association between the duration of epilepsy and performance was assessed.

Across the 6 neurocognitive domains (attention, executive function, language, memory, motor and visuospatial) assessed by our neuropsychological screening, all showed scores that significantly correlated with Kinarm tasks assessing the same cognitive domains except language and memory that were not adequately assessed with Kinarm. Participants with right TLE performed worse on most tasks than those with left TLE, including both visuospatial (typically considered right hemisphere), and verbal memory and language tasks (typically considered left hemisphere). No correlations were found between the duration of epilepsy and either the neuropsychological screening or Kinarm assessment.

Our findings suggest that Kinarm may be a useful tool in screening for neurocognitive impairment in people with TLE. Further development may facilitate an easier and more rapid screening of cognition in people with epilepsy and distinguishing patterns of cognitive impairment.