Saturday, November 26, 2011

Epilepsy Warriros - Ask a Doc - Seizure detection devices - What is out there?

Seizure detection devices - What is out there?


Are Wrist Pulse Oximeter meters a good or bad thing to have in order to help parents become alerted whether their child is having a seizure? I read that they can detect changes and alert individuals when Tonic-Clonic seizures occur however, they're is no data or information asIt's to whether they can alert if other types of seizures such as absence, atonic or complex partial are occurring. Are these Pulse Oximeter able to alert people when other than a tonic-clonic seizure is involved? on New!! Epilepsy Warriors - "Ask a Doc"


 Seizure detection devices are a "holy grail"  in  Epilepsy care. In fact, the FDA recently had a workshop on seizure detection devices (see below). The summary article summarizes the technological and clinical questions very well.  These devices would have usefulness at home and even in the hospital.

 But, before discussing devices, one should consider if a home seizure detection device would be helpful?

 Most of the time, in the office,  families asked for seizure detection device in the early stages of the diagnosis. 90% of the time these children are basically well and have rare seizures. The concern is understandable and obvious. 90% of parent to witness their children have a seizure think that the end is near. That kind of experience scars you and you don't want to live through it again.

 However, we also battle the tendency to medicalize and stigmatize  people with epilepsy.  70 to 80% of people with epilepsy achieve seizure control with 1 to 2 medications. Were we to Japan


 Seizure detection is a hot topic that has borne little fruit for home use.

If you search seizure detection device in the national Library of medicine, there are 111 articles.  if you search for review articles on "seizure detection", you get 254 hits.

The perfect device would be sensitive and specific. In other words, the perfect device would not miss events but we also would not want to be alerted needlessly. Any parent who's had a child on  home apnea monitoring knows how insensitive those devices can be just for monitoring oxygen saturation and breathing.

 The bottom line however is that no clinical advice has reached the threshold of acceptable sensitivity and false prediction rate.

















No comments: