Neuropsychological Evaluation of Visual Spatial Functions in Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy Patients

Abstract

Objective:The main purpose of this research was to evaluate visual spatial functions in patients with juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME). The aim of this study was to determine the neuropsychological profile of subprocesses of visual spatial functions in JME patients.Methods:Two different participant groups were included in the study. Twenty-two patients aged 18 years and older with a diagnosis of JME and 22 healthy volunteers with similar age, gender, and education status as the patient group were included as the control group. The Benton Face Recognition Test, Symbol Cancellation Test (SCT), Trail Making Test (TMT), and Judgment Line Orientation Test (JLOT) were used to evaluate visual spatial functions.Results:The evaluation of neuropsychological tests showed that the JME patients underperformed in the JLOT and TMT compared with the control group, but the difference was not statistically significant. However, the results were statistically significant in some SCT sub-forms.Conclusion:The results support the idea that JME patients have not only frontal lobe dysfunction but also a more global impairment in visual spatial functions.

Keywords

• juvenile myoclonic epilepsy
• neuropsychological evaluation
• visual spatial functions