Neuropsychological factors related to employability and occupational status in persons with epilepsy.

The relationship between neuropsychological abilities and employment and occupational status was examined in 108 epilepsy patients. The performances of each subject on a wide range of neuropsychological measures were grouped into six conceptually meaningful ability categories. Highly significant differences were obtained between groups of patients with epilepsy differing in employment status and occupational status across both the range of individual measures and the composite neuropsychological ability areas utilized. The relative importance of the six ability scores was then examined with respect to employment status and occupational status. The results suggest that generalized neuropsychological dysfunction characterizes groups of persons who are unemployed and/or who have held low occupational level jobs. Within this context of general impairment, however, memory and alertness and flexibility in thinking appear to be relatively important abilities with respect to these general employment variables. Implications of the results for vocational and rehabilitation efforts were discussed.