What is epileptiform activity on EEG?

What is epileptiform activity on EEG?

An epileptiform activity in EEG signals including spikes, sharp waves, or spike-and-wave complexes can be evident not only during a seizure (the ictal period) but also a short time before (the preictal period) as well as between seizures (the interictal period).

Is epileptiform an activity?

Background: The term epileptiform discharge typically refers to interictal paroxysmal activity that occurs more commonly during sleep. This type of paroxysmal activity does not include the electroencephalographic (EEG) activity observed during a seizure.

What are epileptic waves?

Electroencephalography (EEG) Although most patients do not have seizures when the EEG is being recorded, they often have abnormal brain activity in the EEG (spikes or sharp waves) that indicates they have a tendency to have seizures.

What do epileptiform discharges mean?

Epileptiform discharges were defined as generalized polyspikes, polyspike-wave, and spike-wave occurring in the forms of a single discharge or a burst. The duration of discharges was measured manually with a tool provided in the EEG software.

Does epileptiform discharges mean epilepsy?

The name benign epileptiform transients of sleep (BETS) belies its clinical signifance. Seen in temporal regions during drowsiness or sleep as small spikes/discharges without slow wave; similar discharges can be associated with epilepsy when they are frequent, consistently unilateral, or associated with focal slowing.

What causes epileptiform?

The most common cause of PLEDs is an acute or subacute structural injury of the cerebral cortex, either diffuse or focal; however, PLEDs may also be seen in patients with a chronic static cerebral lesion or chronic epilepsy.

Are epileptiform discharges seizures?

Interictal epileptiform discharges (IEDs), meaning spikes, polyspikes, sharp waves, or spike and slow-wave complexes without observed clinical seizures, are commonly observed in children with epilepsy.

What is difference between seizure and epilepsy?

Seizures are individual occurrences of abnormal electrical activity in the brain. There are many causes of seizures, including singular events like a medication reaction. Epilepsy, on the other hand, is a chronic neurologic disorder that causes repeated seizure activity.

Are epileptiform discharges normal?

Approximately 1–5% of the population has epileptiform discharges (EDs) on EEG. EDs are seen more commonly in people with epilepsy than in controls, and include spikes or polyspikes, sharp waves, or spike and slow wave complexes, occurring isolated or in brief runs, without obvious clinical correlates.

What is the adjective for epileptiform?

epileptiform(Adjective) Of or pertaining to epilepsy, or resembling epilepsy, particularly in regard to its associated seizures, as with grand mal epileptiform seizure.

What does epilepsy mean?

[ ep″ĭ-lep´tĭ-form] 1. resembling epilepsy or its manifestations. 2. occurring in severe or sudden paroxysms. Miller-Keane Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing, and Allied Health, Seventh Edition. © 2003 by Saunders, an imprint of Elsevier, Inc.

Can epileptiform habit be transmitted?

The epileptiform habit is but rarely transmitted to progeny. The patient is now peculiarly liable to what are called congestive seizures or epileptiform attacks. There are cases of reported cures in the literature even after what seemed to be characteristic epileptiform attacks had occurred.

What is the medical definition of seizure?

1. the sudden attack or recurrence of a disease. 2. a convulsion or attack of epilepsy. absence seizure the seizure seen in petit mal epilepsy, marked by a momentary break in the stream of thought and activity, accompanied by a symmetrical spike and wave at 3 cycles per second on the electroencephalogram.