Abstracts

Rationale: Non-epileptic events occur commonly in the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit. In addition to nonepileptic seizures, other causes of nonepileptic events include cardiac arrhythmias, neurocardiogenic syncope and breath-holding spells in the young. Past studies suggest nonepileptic seizures to be more common in young women. The objective of this study is to determine if younger age predispose subjects to nonepileptic events.Methods: Records from 1118 patients admitted for video-EEG monitoring with concomitant EKG at University of New Mexico Hospital from January 2000 to July 2005 and Mayo Clinic Jacksonville from September 2005 to January 2006 were reviewed. All included patients were admitted with a diagnosis of possible seizures, convulsions, paroxysmal alterations of consciousness, or possible non-epileptic seizures. Data gathered included age, gender, reason for the video-EEG referral, and results of video-EEG monitoring. We used logistic regression to determine the effect of age on the development of nonepileptic events in the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit.Results: About one-third of the patients are under age 10. 45% of patients had nonepileptic events during monitoring. 1% of patients had both epileptic and nonepileptic events during monitoring. A five-year increase in age is associated with a 7% increase (95% Wald confidence interval 3-12%, p< 0.001) in the odds of having a nonepileptic event. A ten-year increase in age is associated with a 15% (95% CI 6-25%, p<0.001) increase in the odds of having a nonepileptic event. The 10-year age range with the highest percentage of nonepileptic events was the 50-59 year-old range.Conclusions: Children are less likely than adults to have nonepileptic events during inpatient epilepsy monitoring. Increasing age predisposes to the expression of nonepileptic events, with the middle-age years being the most at risk.