Neuropsychological compensatory strategies for memory deficits in patients with epilepsy

The importance of an integrated interdisciplinary approach to epilepsy care emerges as a dominant theme throughout this book. It is now recognized that cognitive and psychosocial sequelae, in patients with epilepsy often unaccompanied by more readily observed physical deficits, can be one of the most stubborn obstacles to vocational and social success and even independent living. Cognitive rehabilitation is an attempt to reduce those sequelae, to the extent that they are impaired by cognitive deficits. Furthermore, within the framework of this integrated approach, individual differences among epilepsy patients indicate the need for a flexible approach to cognitive rehabilitation. Treatment must be customized for the deficits and handicaps experienced by the patients. An unintegrated monodisciplinary approach to cognitive rehabilitation simply contributes to the fragmentation that may already dominate the life of a person with epilepsy. In this chapter the applicability of compensatory strategies as one of the main approaches in cognitive rehabilitation is reviewed, and the possible benefits for patients with epilepsy are described. This will be illustrated by a treatment programme for memory support that we have developed in our epilepsy centre.