Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals for excellent healthcare

Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals is one of the few hospitals in India offering advanced imaging technology for treatment of epileptic diseases. said Dr Puspendra Nath Renjen, Senior Consultant, Neurology, Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, interacting with media persons in Guwahati on September 3 last. Epilepsy is a major health problem in India with over 5.5 million patients suffering out of which 3.5 million are in rural areas. Prevalence is higher in developing countries with higher incidence in childhood and old age. A large part of the problem being that epilepsy is very difficult to diagnose and be treated effectively, said Dr Renjen.

Video EEG is one of the most advanced, effective methods in the assessment and diagnosis of neurological abnormalities. The long term video EEG monitoring helps in establishing the beginning of the seizures in the brain. This long term recording helps distinguish epileptic seizures from psychologenic non-epileptic seizures which in turn facilitates us to evaluate the candidate for surgery to treat epilepsy, said Dr Renjen. Different technologies are available for video EEG monitoring which includes data storage, retrieval and review. He further said that although inpatient monitoring is more expensive, it is effective in examining major or conclusive seizures.

EEG is a sampling of electrical activity occurring in the brain which helps in studying neurological abnormalities. Short term EEG monitoring is available at various institutes throughout India, but studies have shown that a single routine scalp EEG yields only fifty percent information where certain data can be confused with epitepti form discharges, he said.

To overcome this shortcoming, Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals recently launched long term Video EEG monitoring wherein the EEG is recorded for prolonged periods, accompanied by continuous closed circuits video observation. This is a multi channel long term EEG recording with a split screen video recording. This digitized EEG along with the recorded behaviors displayed simultaneously allow point to point links of recorded events and any accompanying electrographic changes. This recording is periodically monitored by trained technologists and nurses and reviewed by a neurologist where they issue the final report.

The Video EEG monitoring validates the medication choices allowing safe discontinuation of antiepileptic drugs. This information can also be used to discuss a diagnosis of pseudo-seizures with patients thus helping the neurologist decide on future treatment, said Dr Renjen.

In a message, the Managing Director of Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, Jaideep Gupta said that it was yet another step towards cost effective management of diseases. Apollo’s dedicated team of neurosurgeons would be working together with this new facility to cure patients effectively.