Assessment of the technical usability and efficacy of a new portable dry-electrode EEG recorder: First results of the HOME study.

OBJECTIVES

The HOME project is intended to provide evidence of diagnostic and therapeutic yield of a patient-controlled EEG home-monitoring for neurological outpatients.

METHODS

This study evaluated the technical and practical usability and efficacy of a new portable dry-electrode EEG recorder in comparison to conventional EEG devices based on technical assessments and inter-rater comparisons of EEG record examinations of office-based practitioners and two experienced neurologists.

RESULTS

The technical assessment was based on channel-wise comparisons of band power values derived from power spectra as observed in two recording modalities. Slight yet significant differences were observed only in the Delta-frequency band (1.5-4 Hz). The fraction of automatically detected artifact segments was larger in the new portable recordings than in conventional recordings (20% vs. 11%, median). Overall, 93% of raters' stated diagnostic findings gathered from conventional devices were concordant with stated diagnostic findings gathered from the new portable device.

CONCLUSION

The new EEG device was shown to have technical comparability to and a high concordance rate of diagnostic findings with conventional EEG devices.

SIGNIFICANCE

The new portable dry-electrode EEG device is suitable to meet the HOME projects' goal of establishing a patient-controlled EEG home-monitoring in the routine care of neurological outpatients.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

DRKS DRKS00012685. Registered 09 August 2017, retrospectively registered.