The performance-complaint relationship in patients with epilepsy: a matter of daily demands?

Weak relationships have been reported between subjective complaints of memory deficits and memory performance in neuropsychological tests in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). This study investigated whether the individual exposure to cognitive demands in daily life contributes to cancel out the performance-complaint relationship in such a way that cognitive deficits are more likely experienced by patients in 'high demand' than in 'low demand' situations. Neuropsychological performance, subjective complaints and daily demands were assessed in 57 TLE-patients 1 year after a temporal lobe surgery. Data were analyzed using non-parametric statistical techniques. Results indicated surprisingly close relationships between subjective complaints and memory performance in standardized tests. The highest correlations were found for the non-verbal memory test. Cognitive demands did not counteract this result. Contrary to our expectation, lower demands were associated with stronger subjective complaints. Cognitive demands thus appeared not as a modulating factor that weakens the relationship between test deficits and subjective complaints in patients with TLE.