TY  - JOUR
A1  - Conradi, Nadine Caroline
A1  - Behrens, Marion
A1  - Hermsen, Anke Maria
A1  - Kannemann, Tabitha
A1  - Merkel, Nina
A1  - Schuster, Annika
A1  - Freiman, Thomas Michael
A1  - Strzelczyk, Adam
A1  - Rosenow, Felix
T1  - Assessing cognitive change and quality of life 12 months after epilepsy surgery - development and application of reliable change indices and standardized regression-based change norms for a neuropsychological test battery in the german language
T2  - Frontiers in psychology
N2  - Objective: The establishment of patient-centered measures capable of empirically determining meaningful cognitive change after surgery can significantly improve the medical care of epilepsy patients. Thus, this study aimed to develop reliable change indices (RCIs) and standardized regression-based (SRB) change norms for a comprehensive neuropsychological test battery in the German language.
Methods: Forty-seven consecutive patients with temporal lobe epilepsy underwent neuropsychological assessments, both before and 12 months after surgery. Practice-effect-adjusted RCIs and SRB change norms for each test score were computed. To assess their usefulness, the presented methods were applied to a clinical sample, and binary logistic regression analyses were conducted to model the odds of achieving improvement in quality of life (QOL) after surgery.
Results: The determined RCIs at 90% confidence intervals and the SRB equations for each test score included in the test battery are provided. Cohen’s kappa analyses revealed a moderate mean agreement between the two measures, varying from slight to almost perfect agreement across test scores. Using these measures, a negative association between improvement in QOL and decline in verbal memory functions after surgery was detected (adjusted odds ratio = 0.09, p = 0.006).
Significance: To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to develop RCIs and SRB change norms necessary for the objective determination of neuropsychological change in a comprehensive test battery in the German language, facilitating the individual monitoring of improvement and decline in each patients’ cognitive functioning and psychosocial situations after epilepsy surgery. The application of the described measures revealed a strong negative association between improvement in QOL and decline in verbal memory functions after surgery.
KW  - longitudinal follow-up after epilepsy surgery
KW  - cognitive decline
KW  - improvement in quality of life
KW  - reliable change index
KW  - standardized regression-based change norms
KW  - minimal clinically important difference
Y1  - 2020
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/57189
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-571899
SN  - 1664-1078
VL  - 11
IS  - Art. 582836
PB  - Frontiers Media
CY  - Lausanne
ER  -