[Long-term EEG recording in comparison with sleep deprivation and other provocation methods in epilepsy patients]

Abstract

37 epileptics with routine records without paroxysms were subject to 24 hours mobile long-term EEG registration and independently 24 hours sleep deprivation EEG including hyperventilation and photic stimulation. The anticonvulsive treatment was not changed. In 14 cases we could prove epileptiform discharges (= positive finding) by using both methods, in 13 after sleep derivation (10 at rest, 3 only during hyperventilation) in 7 in the long-term record and in 6 of them both after sleep deprivation and in long-term record. As epileptiform discharges we rated spikes, spikes ans slow waves, epileptic K-complexes, spike and waves and poly spike wave-paroxysms. We refer the small number of positive findings in the mobile long-term EEG mainly to the fact that only 3 EEG canals are disponible until now. Therefore on the one hand it is not definitely possible to distinguish sharp waves from sharp transients physiologically appearing in sleep, on the other hand focal EEG-changes often escape from being recorded.