Interest in the use of aEEG has been extended to other areas of newborn intensive care. Detection
of seizures is of great interest among clinicians given the diverse phenotypes of neonatal seizures, possible clinical‐electrographic dissociation, and the real world Fasudil issues of obtaining a conventional EEG on short notice in many neonatal intensive care units, especially on weekends, evenings, or holidays. Given the limited number of channels and electrodes of an aEEG, it is well recognized that seizures distant from the recording electrodes will not be detected. Time compression facilitates inspection and monitoring of background activity, but limits detection of short seizures. The identification of electrographic seizures using aEEG has improved with the inclusion of the raw EEG tracing on most current aEEG devices. Validated computerized seizure detection algorithms will further enhance the utility of aEEG. Selleckchem Bosutinib Quality assurance issues regarding the adequacy of training and expertise of providers within NICUs who interpret aEEG recordings is a difficult issue for seizure detection and characterization of background activity. Interpretation of seizures is probably more challenging, since most clinicians do not have
a background in electroencephalography. Toso et al. also describe an application of aEEG for infants with severe respiratory distress. Infants with non‐neurological conditions can be challenging to assess by a conventional neurological examination. Infants with severe respiratory distress can manifest decreased activity, poor tone, and sluggish response to stimuli, all secondary to the severity of the underlying pulmonary condition. Assessment of consciousness level can be performed in very sick infants, but is often obscured by the sedative‐hypnotic agents used in conjunction with respiratory support. The aEEG provides an attractive means to assess the integrity of the central nervous
system of infants who are critically ill when other conventional monitoring techniques (e.g., full CYTH4 montage EEG) are not available. As aEEG is applied to different cohorts of infants, it will always be important to continue to critically assess the relationship between aEEG data and early childhood outcomes. Since most of these evaluations will typically be performed in the absence of a randomized trial, careful study design will be necessary in order to acquire information in a manner as unbiased as possible. The author declares no conflicts of interest. “
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