Anomia prehabilitation in temporal lobe epilepsy surgery: A pilot study

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Speech and Language Pathology
• Surgical Rehabilitation

Background:

• Drug-resistant language-dominant temporal lobe epilepsy (LdTLE) poses significant challenges.
• Surgical interventions for LdTLE risk cognitive deficits, including anomia and verbal memory impairment.
• Prehabilitation programs aim to enhance patient functional abilities before surgery.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of a speech and language prehabilitation program for LdTLE patients.
• To assess the impact of prehabilitation on naming performance and verbal memory before and after surgery.
• To determine if prehabilitation can mitigate postsurgical cognitive decline.

Main Methods:

• 15 LdTLE patients participated in a daily preoperative speech and language prehabilitation program.
• Naming performance for trained and untrained words was assessed pre- and post-surgery.
• Generalized linear mixed effects models were used for data analysis.

Main Results:

• Prehabilitation significantly improved naming performance for trained words prior to surgery.
• Postoperatively, trained words showed a non-significant performance increase, while untrained words significantly declined.
• Trained words demonstrated better protection against postsurgical decline compared to untrained words.

Conclusions:

• Speech and language prehabilitation can protect trained word recall in LdTLE patients after surgery.
• Prehabilitation may be a valuable component of individualized care for surgical patients.
• Further research is warranted to explore the protective effects of prehabilitation on language skills.