Tape-recorded EEG and the cerebral function monitor: amplitude-integrated, time-compressed EEG

Monitoring of spontaneous brain electrical activity (EEG) has three purposes: Detecting sudden loss of background activity as an early sign of brain hypoxia/ischaemia, detection of silent seizures, and helping to diagnose brain damage. Tape-recording allows storage of upto 8 channels of standard EEG for prolonged periods, but some direct readout is necessary for monitoring purposes and review is time consuming. The Cerebral Function Monitoring technique (CFM) provides a 1/500 time-compressed recording of EEG amplitude overall EEG background activity as well as seizures. Lack of knowledge of when and how to intervene, rather than technical problems, puts a limit to the usefulness.