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Biomedical subjects

A M Beun

Publications and source records attributed to A M Beun.

9 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1998

Sharp transients in the sleep EEG of healthy adults: a possible pitfall in the diagnostic assessment of seizure disorders.

The use of sleep EEG recordings is a routine procedure in the diagnostic work up of patients with suspected epilepsy. With respect to the diagnostic significance of paroxysmal EEG phenomena it is of importance to be informed about the incidence of such paroxysms in EEG's of healthy subjects. Several benign paroxysmal EEG phenomena during drowsiness or sleep have been identified (benign epileptiform transients of sleep (BETS), 14 and 6 positive spikes). Recent studies have shown that other, apparently aspecific, paroxysmal sharp transients may be recorded during drowsiness or sleep in healthy subjects. In order to obtain more data on such paroxysmal EEG phenomena during sleep, a qualitative and semi quantitative analysis was performed on full night sleep recordings from 60 carefully selected healthy volunteers. Only 4 recordings were completely without the studied phenomena, all others showed some suspicious paroxysmal transients and some rare yet true specific epileptiform discharges were recorded in 8 subjects (13%), predominantly during transient periods of light non-REM sleep in the first two sleep cycles. The presence of some sharp transients during drowsiness or light sleep thus should be considered as a non-specific and non-pathological finding. Moreover these findings indicate the limited diagnostic specificity of the presence of a few epileptiform discharges during sleep, especially in patients with an ambiguous clinical history of epilepsy.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1996

Effect of epilepsy, seizures and epileptiform EEG discharges on cognitive function.

Patients with an established diagnosis of epilepsy were included in three groups on the basis of the absence (Group 2) or presence (Group 3) of epileptiform EEG discharges or subtle seizures (Group 4) during the cognitive assessment procedure. A separate age-matched non-epileptic control group (Group 1) was formed. Twenty-five patients were included in each of the four groups. Thus, a total of 100 patients were investigated. The patients were assessed with continuous 21-channel EEG and video-monitoring, combined with cognitive testing. The results show consistently lower performance on cognitive tests for Group 4, the group with subtle seizures. The difference with the control group was significant for the intelligence subtests and for the complex information processing test (p < 0.05). No transient cognitive impairment was found. The results are discussed in the light of possible factors that may be responsible for the lower test-scores in the patients of Group 4: both the ictal effects of the seizures themselves, postictal effects and the effects of the epileptiform EEG discharges may have had an impact on cognitive performance. Finally the absence of evidence for transient cognitive impairment in a group with frequent epileptiform EEG discharges is discussed in detail.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Effect of sabeluzole (R 58,735) on memory functions in patients with epilepsy.

Sabeluzole, a new benzothiazol derivative, has shown positive effects on memory function in animals and in normal volunteers. The present study reports the results of sabeluzole, in memory-impaired patients with localization-related (partial) epilepsy. A randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled parallel-group design was used. A total of 38 patients entered a prospective baseline. Five patients dropped out from the study, thus 33 patients were randomly assigned to either a 12-weeks treatment with sabeluzole (n = 14) or placebo (n = 19). The treatment phase was preceded by a titration phase of 4 weeks to obtain serum levels of sabeluzole between 50 and 130 ng/ml. In order to maintain blindness, a sham titration was carried out in the placebo group. The number of 'responders', i.e. patients with a > 1 SD improvement on at least three of the memory tests was 9 out of 14 (64.3%) in the sabeluzole group and 7 out of 19 (36.8%) in the placebo group. This suggests a clinically relevant effect of sabeluzole. The analysis of the memory tests showed a statistically significant improvement with sabeluzole on the verbal long-term memory test. This could represent a specific drug effect and is in line with previous results of normal volunteer studies that also found improvement mainly restricted to the area of verbal long-term memory.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Home EEG and video monitoring in epilepsy: first experiences.

In an out-patient epilepsy clinic methods were developed for mobile epilepsy diagnosis and treatment. One of the diagnostic facilities is long-term EEG/video monitoring at home. Method and first results are presented together with a case report of an 8-year-old boy with persistent seizures.

Child↗
PubMed1984

Epileptic nystagmus.

"Epileptic nystagmus" unaccompanied by other ictal phenomena is rare. We report four new cases confirmed by ictal EEG and video or cine recording in which nystagmus was a prominent and sometimes the only clinical manifestation of the seizures. The ictal EEG showed a parietal focus in three instances and generalized spike-wave activity in one.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Gamma-vinyl GABA (vigabatrin) and mood disturbances.

We explored factors that may predispose patients to adverse mood effects during treatment with vigabatrin (gamma-vinyl GABA; VGB): mood disorders before VGB treatment, type of epilepsy, seizure type and seizure frequency, type and number of comedication, and VGB dose. The clinical relevance of such a study is that it may help identify circumstances in which VGB should be administered with caution. Seventy-three patients (40 males, 33 females), all with refractory epilepsies, who received VGB as add-on therapy, were assessed by the Amsterdamse Stemmingslyst (ASL), a mood-rating scale, before the start of treatment, and demographic and clinical data were recorded. The patients were followed for 6 months after the start of VGB treatment. Treatment with VGB had to be discontinued in 38 patients (52% of the total sample). Mood problems were the main reason for discontinuation in 9 (12.3% of the total sample). In 6 other patients, mood problems were mentioned as the reason for discontinuing treatment, in combination with lack of drug efficacy. Development of adverse mood effects could not be predicted by a specific mood profile on the ASL. Before treatment, the "mood problems discontinuation group" did not show extreme scores for any assessed areas of mood and no significant differences from other patients were noted on the mood scales. Neither did clinical or demographic data show statistically confirmed specific characteristics for the mood problems discontinuation group, though the patients tended to use more antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) as cotherapy, to have a slightly lower daily dose of VGB, to be slightly older, and were mostly female.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Adolescent↗