Epilepsy and sleep

Abstract

Two hundreds epileptic patients with nocturnal seizures were studied. The study included evaluation of anamnesis, clinical and neurological examination, routine EEG and/or video-EEG-monitoring, MRI of the brain. The period of observation was 6 months — 10 years (on average 3.5 years). Epilepsy started with nocturnal seizures in 48% cases, in 30.5% of patients all seizures persisted during sleep. In 25% patients, nocturnal seizures were different from seizures in awakening. In 18.5% cases, seizures were randomly dispersed in the sleep-wake cycle. Different types of nocturnal nonepileptic seizures were noted in 8.5% cases. The relationship between sleep and epilepsy as well as different types of parasomnias that mimicked epileptic seizures were described and analyzed.