The Quality of Life after Resective Surgery for Medical Refractory Epilepsy

Overview

Goal:
The presentation assesses the subjective quality of life of 50 adults with intractable epilepsy before and after neurosurgical resective surgery.

Methods:
Psychometrically validated Czech translations of queostionnaires WPSI (Washington Psychosocial Seizure Inventory), QOLIE-89 (Quality of Life in Epilepsy Inventory-89), ESI-55 (Epilepsy Surgery Inventory- 55), and the original Czech methods DSF (Questionnaire of satisfaction and frustration), SUPOS (Subjective feelings and states), and SUPOS-z (Subjective feelings and states - change) were used for the evaluation..

Results:
After surgery, significant improvement in quality of life in many areas occurred, most strikingly in patients in whom seizures disappeared completely. In the whole sample,there were no statistically significant relations between presurgical values of quality of life and results of surgery. However, we present two case reports, in which, after conspicuous manifestations in presurgical evaluations, striking problems appeared after successful surgery which completely removed seizures, namely new psychogenic seizures and new paranoid manifestations occurred for the first time.

Conclusion:
Postsurgery period without seizures is important, but not the only factor which determines postoperative improvement of quality of life.The investigation of the subjective quality of life can help to prevent the psychosocial complications after surgery.

Key words:
epilepsy, neurosurgery, quality of life, WPSI, QOLIE-89, ESI-55.