Monitoring at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Long-term EEG monitoring with radio or cable telemetry and video recording can be performed efficiently as an organized team effort involving physicians, nurses, technologists and other ancillary personnel. We use telemetry primarily for screening patients for possible surgical treatment of partial epilepsy. The technique is also used occasionally to define better the patient's type(s) of seizures or to differentiate seizures from pseudoseizures. Important technical points include precise correlation of EEG with clinical events, choice of recording montage, use of a 1 Hz low filter, and use of sphenoidal electrodes. Patients may need to be stressed, exercised or have medications reduced to bring about a sufficient number of seizures during monitoring. Care is needed to avoid or to identify atypical seizures due to medication withdrawal.