Figure 2.1. Use and misuse of EEGs. Two girls with similar EEG abnormalities of generalised spike/multiple spike and slow wave discharges either spontaneous or elicited by intermittent photic stimulation.

Figure 2.1Use and misuse of EEGs. Two girls with similar EEG abnormalities of generalised spike/multiple spike and slow wave discharges either spontaneous or elicited by intermittent photic stimulation

Top: proper use of EEGs. This girl gave a clear-cut history of two seizures that, on clinical grounds, had all the elements of focal motor seizures. Her eyes first and then her head turned to the left and ‘I could not bring them back to normal’ for 2 min. The EEG clearly documented that she had generalised not focal epilepsy.

Bottom: misuse of the EEG. A 26-year-old woman with JME had the onset of seizures at age 13 years. These consisted of brief absences with eyelid jerking. Her first EEG documented the epileptic nature of the attacks, but the reporting physician and the EEG technologist considered the discharges as artefacts produced by the concurrent eyelid jerking. The EEG was erroneously reported as normal.

From: Chapter 2, Optimal Use of the EEG in the Diagnosis and Management of Epilepsies

Cover of The Epilepsies
The Epilepsies: Seizures, Syndromes and Management.
Panayiotopoulos CP.
Oxfordshire (UK): Bladon Medical Publishing; 2005.
Copyright © 2005, Bladon Medical Publishing, an imprint of Springer Science+Business Media.

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