King's College London

Children with epilepsy are prone to sleep difficulties, and poorer overall health including tummy trouble. To diagnose epilepsy, we can use brainwave monitoring - electroencephalography (EEG) - in patients’ homes. This holds enormous promise, by monitoring the brain in a natural setting. However, up to half of these EEGs are classified as non-diagnostic, which delays children from getting the care they need. This is because periods of EEG which do not include seizures are sometimes considered unhelpful and not reviewed further. We think they can be helpful, especially if we review them taking account of the patient’s overall health.

We will look at existing, stored EEGs. We can study sleep quality by counting how often arousals from sleep happen. We can study brain-body links by using heart rate, which is recorded during EEG. We can study overall health by counting the number of conditions a person has beyond epilepsy (e.g. autism, constipation = 2 conditions).

What this research will add:
New information to speed up diagnosis
Identify EEG ‘signatures’ of brain health, that could be used to target treatments
Acknowledge the links between epilepsy and wider well-being that are important to families.