Rimpy Bhuyan
BACKGROUND
EEG or Electroencephalogram, which is the most important diagnostic procedure to evaluate Epilepsy patients, may sometimes fall short of accurate sensitivity and may require few Activation Procedures such as ‘Hyperventilation’ and ‘Sleep’ to bring out the active changes of an Epileptic brain. The present study was done with the aim of knowing the efficacy of such Activation Procedures like ‘Hyperventilation’ and ‘Sleep’ in illustrating the EEG wave pattern changes of an Epileptic brain during the interictal period.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
The present study was done in the Department of Physiology in association with the Department of Neurology, Assam Medical College & Hospital, Dibrugarh, Assam from June 2014 to May 2015. ‘113’ clinically diagnosed cases of Epilepsy were studied and analysed through Electroencephalogram using the internationally accepted 10-20 electrode placement method. Hyperventilation was used in 28 Epilepsy cases and Sleep was used in 14 Epilepsy cases. History & Physical examination findings were recorded in a Proforma. Chi-square analysis was done through GraphPad Prism 6 software to assess the significance of the activation procedures used.
RESULTS
Our study found that EEG of 42 cases out of the total 113 cases required Activation Procedures to elicit the wave pattern changes of the Epileptic brain. Hyperventilation was helpful in adult age group and sleep was useful in children age group. Hyperventilation had overall 53.57% sensitivity in detecting Epilepsy, and Sleep had 64.29% sensitivity in detecting Epilepsy. Hyperventilation was specifically helpful to elicit absence seizures where it had 75% sensitivity.
CONCLUSION
The sensitivity of EEG in detecting Epilepsy can thus be increased by using activation procedures like sleep & Hyperventilation to ensure that no epilepsy cases are missed out in diagnosis & treatment.
