Abstracts

Rationale: Cigarette smoking is common in patients with intractable epilepsy. As a preliminary assessment of epilepsy and smoking, we evaluated the impact of breaks for smoking on the investigation of epilepsy patients admitted to our epilepsy monitoring unit.Methods: Absences from the epilepsy unit at the London Health Sciences Center were monitored for 40 consecutive days by nursing personnel. During these absences, events that occurred were registered as well. This is possible using portable EEG recorders (XLTEK) that patients carry with them all the time. A disadvantage is that video recording is not available if the patient has a seizure outside the unit. Information was entered in a datasheet. Diagnosis, duration of hospital stay and frequency and amount of cigarette smoking were recorded. Descriptive statistics were performed using MS Excel 2003.Results: 113 smoking trips were recorded. Mean duration of stay was 7.8 days (range: 4-11 days). The number of smoking trips was found not to be associated with the amount of cigarette smoking reported by the patients. Only 3 events were missed on video. None of the events had electrographic correlation, raising a suspicion of non-epileptic events (pseudoseizures). Conclusions: Despite the low number of events missed, precious information may be lost during smoking trips by patients admitted to the epilepsy unit. Ways to avoid such trips should be implemented in epilepsy monitoring units allowing smoking breaks for patients.