Electroencephalographic (EEG) Pattern in Patients with Partial Seizures

The EEG-abnormality observed in the form of Focal Slowing (Group I) and Generalized Slowing (Group II) was found to be zero percent in the first age-category. However, age category (ii) had 24.32% EEG abnormalities in Group I, and 10.81% abnormalities in Group II. Similarly age category (iii) had 10.71%, and 7.14% EEG abnormalities in the study groups I and II, respectively. The research presented here is a hospital-based study, conducted from January 1998 to September 2002. A total of 74 patients (male=42 and female=32) with ages ranging from 6 months (0.5) to 25 years were studied. All of the patients were clinically diagnosed as having Partial Seizures (PSz). The results of the combined patient population also showed that the occurrence of abnormalities in Group III is more frequent (39.18%) when compared to all other study groups. The percentage of cases (20.27%) with Unremarkable EEG features (Group VI) was also more frequent. EEG tests and neurological examinations were performed on all patients by experienced Neurologists and Clinical Neurophysiologists. A digital EEG (Nicolet Voyageur) was used with the international 10-20 system and standard parameters. Keeping in view the clinical diagnosis and EEG-characteristics, the patients were divided into six study groups. The cases were also divided in three age-wise categories: (i) 0.5 2 years, (ii) >2 9 years, and (iii) > 9 25 years. The role of EEGs in the diagnosis of seizures was evaluated by comparing the neurological examinations of the cases with their EEGfindings. The results of the comparison showed that 51.35% (n=38) of the cases had concordance with EEGs and clinical examination for Partial Seizure (PSz), while 2.7% (n=1) of the cases had concordance with Unremarkable EEG-features and Neurological examinations respectively. Overall 45.95% (n=35) of the cases were found to show dis-concordance. Therefore, it may be concluded that EEG examination is a hallmark for the diagnosis and proper therapeutic decisions in all-epileptic disorders. Age-wise relationships of the patients with Partial Seizures showed that the majority of the patients (55.55%) in the age category (i), and 35.13% in age category (ii), and 39.28% in age category (iii) had the EEG-abnormality as Focal Sharp Waves/Spikes (Group III). The number of patients showing abnormal EEGs as Generalized Sharp Waves/Spikes (Group IV) in the three age-categories were 11.11%, 18.91%, and 3.57% respectively. Whereas, 33.33%, 5.40% and 35.71% of the patients in the above three age categories had unremarkable EEGs (Group VI). (