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[Treatment of children with a paroxysmal electroencephalogram without seizures]
1Laboratorio para el estudio de las Funciones Cerebrales Superiores, Buenos Aires, Argentina. mce@interar.com.ar
Insights
Anticonvulsive drug treatment shows positive outcomes in 80% of children with neurodevelopmental disorders and abnormal EEG patterns. Slow focal activity on EEG (EEG-4 pattern) indicates a good clinical prognosis for these conditions.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Pediatrics
- Clinical Neurology
Background:
- Infantile neurodevelopmental disorders can present with paroxysmal and focal electroencephalogram (EEG) alterations, even without epileptic seizures.
- These EEG abnormalities may signify underlying neurodevelopmental issues in infants.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess the efficacy of anticonvulsive drug therapy in managing neurodevelopmental disorders with abnormal EEG patterns.
- To correlate clinical improvement with electroencephalographic (EEG) resolution following pharmacological intervention.
Main Methods:
- Four patient groups (10 each) were studied: language and speech disorders (LSD), specific learning difficulties (SLD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and mixed neuropsychological symptoms (MNS).
- A therapeutic protocol involving anticonvulsive drugs was administered to evaluate clinical and EEG progress.
Main Results:
- A linear correlation between clinical and EEG progress was observed in LSD and ADHD groups, and to a lesser extent in MNS and SLD groups.
- Successful clinical progress was noted in 3/10 (LSD), 1/10 (SLD), 2/10 (ADHD), and 3/10 (MNS) patients.
Conclusions:
- Pharmacological treatment demonstrated favorable outcomes in 80% of cases across all four neurodevelopmental disorder groups with abnormal EEG and no seizures.
- The presence of an EEG-4 pattern, characterized by slow focal activity, was associated with a regular clinical prognosis.
Introduction:
The paroxysmal and focal alterations in the electroencephalogram (EEG) of subjects who have never experienced epileptic seizures may be associated with neurodevelopmental disorders in infancy.
Aims:
To determine the true behaviour of the bioelectrical manifestation we have developed a therapeutic protocol with anticonvulsive drugs to enable us to evaluate the degree of clinical improvement along with that of the bioelectrical resolution.
Patients And Methods:
Four groups of patients were selected with 10 patients in each group, allocated according to their clinical diagnosis. The study groups were made up of patients suffering from language and speech disorders (LSD), specific learning difficulties (SLD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and a fourth group with mixed neuropsychological symptoms (MNS).
Results:
A linear relation was found between the behaviour of the clinical progress and the electroencephalographic progress in the groups with LSD and ADHD, and to a lesser extent with the MNS and SLD groups. Clinical progress was considered to be successful in three of the 10 children studied in group A (LSD), in one of the 10 in group B (SLD), in two of the ten belonging to group C (ADHD), and in three of the 10 subjects in group D (MNS).
Conclusions:
The pharmacological treatment of neurodevelopmental disorders, with an abnormal EEG pattern and no seizures, was found to behave favourably in 80% of the cases for the four groups under study. The presence of an EEG-4 pattern, slow focal activity, was indicative of a regular clinical prognosis.