Psychogenic Non Epileptic Seizures Information
What if the patient has no events while having Video EEG?
Several methods can be used to speed up the occurrence of events. Withdrawal of anti-epileptic medications, hyperventilation, and stimulation with lights can be useful. Because the patient is in a hospital setting, bringing about a seizure is safe because there are trained personnel who will know how to treat the seizure.
• Sometimes a longer hospital stay will be necessary to catch all events or even to catch a single one. Some patients complain that the hospital is so much more peaceful than their usual living conditions (i.e. no work, children, chores) that they actually have fewer seizures because of this and they may be right.
• It is very important for doctors to remember that video-EEG monitoring also has certain limitations. Most notably, some epileptic seizures are not easily detected on EEG because they occur in a small and localized area of the brain and might not have been picked up with the EEG monitoring. So, before assuming that these partial seizures are non-epileptic in nature, it is essential that the doctor also take this into consideration. Thus, in order to increase the likelihood of detecting EEG abnormalities, multiple events should be recorded, if possible and other professionals might be called in to add information to the diagnosis. Family members might also be asked to look at the events on video and confirm that they are "typical."
