Overview
After an individual suffers a seizure, testing is often recommended to diagnose the cause. In most cases, the test is a long-term electroencephalogram (LTMEEG), which records the electrical activity in the brain. The test traditionally has required the patient to spend several days and nights in the hospital while the brain is monitored.
Advances in the field, however, now enable eligible patients to participate in ambulatory video EEG monitoring in the comfort of their home. Holy Name is one of the few hospitals in the New York metropolitan area to offer this testing in real time. This means that a board-certified EEG technician reviews the video and EEG as it is being collected. The technician is able to communicate with the patient at all times. The patient's physician is also able to view the video EEG feed (brain waves) at any point.
This at-home monitoring involves setting up a hospital-provided camera in an area where the patient expects to be about 75 percent of the time. The duration of the test is between 24-72 hours, with an average of 48 hours.
Like in-hospital monitoring, the ambulatory EEG is used to help diagnose epilepsy, seizure disorders, brain tumors and sleep disorders. It can detect abnormalities in the patient's brain waves and in the electrical activity. It is used when it's necessary to correlate behavior with EEG activity.
