Bispectral EEG (BSEEG) to assess arousal after electro-convulsive therapy (ECT).

OBJECTIVES

Postictal confusion is encountered among most patients following electro-convulsive therapy (ECT). This study aimed to test the capabilities of a point-of-care electroencephalography (EEG) method to quantitatively measure and monitor postictal confusion immediately following ECT. We evaluated whether a two-channel frontal EEG device may provide a purely quantitative measure of the postictal state that could aid in the continuous, clinical monitoring of patients following ECT.

METHODS

50 patients receiving ECT at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics were recruited for this study. Subsequently, we obtained 5 min of frontal bispectral EEG (BSEEG) recording from a hand-held EEG device at baseline and 10-20 min following ECT. We performed power spectral density analysis to yield a "BSEEG" score and to capture the difference between patients at baseline and after ECT.

RESULTS

The BSEEG score was demonstrated to be a significant indicator of postictal confusion compared to baseline. For 5 patients, we also obtained continuous EEG recordings following ECT to determine the time course required for a patient's BSEEG score to return to baseline. In this subset of patients, it took between 2 and 3 h in duration for the BSEEG score to return to the baseline range.

CONCLUSIONS

In this pilot study, we showed that BSEEG score was able to distinguish between baseline condition and postictal confusion in patients treated with ECT, and assess the duration for recovery from postictal confusion following ECT. BSEEG may provide a more sensitive measure of arousal in patients following ECT compared to traditional survey-based methods.