अमूर्त

Neuropsychological abnormalities in a patient diagnosed with frontoparietal meningioma

Hurtado-Gonz

Background: Meningioma is a benign type of brain tumor. This type of tumor usually grows very slow. However, it can compress brain tissue. Publications about secondary Neuropsychological alterations to a diagnosis of meningioma are generally sparse, but there are studies that indicate cognitive deficit in attention, memory, executive functions and visuoconstructive skills.

Objective: To identify Neuropsychological alterations in patients with diagnosis of frontoparietal meningioma.

Participant: A 52-year-old female patient, married, right-handed and who is an artist. She shows a clinical picture of head trauma without loss of consciousness accompanied by a persistent headache. A radiograph of paranasal sinuses taken showed a normal result. The image of brain scan showed a 2.7 × 2.4 cm meningioma located in the left frontoparietal area with hyperostosis.

Materials: A protocol of neuropsychological evaluation was applied with MMSE test, digit span test, TMT (A/B), Babcock story recall test, Rey-Osterrieth complex figure test, clock-drawing test, memory test, Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB) and a verbal fluency task.

Results: It was found that the patient had difficulty to handle immediate information associated with a possible dysfunction of the frontal lobe (working memory), inability to recall material given by auditory pathway (delayed verbal memory). It was found that the patient was unable to generate verbs or alternation of the same (Executive functions), affecting her quality of life to a lesser extent.

Conclusions: The results indicate that the patient presents Neuropsychological alterations which are associated with frontal lobe. It is suggested to carry out plans of functional Neurorehabilitation which aim at the improvement of the quality of life of the patient, or future people with this type of diagnosis.