Electroencephalography (EEG) for detecting acute ischemic stroke

Abstract

Currently, the study of EEG for detecting circulatory blood disorders in the brain, including strokes are being widely investigated. EEGs are widely used to diagnose epilepsy, seizures, Alzheimer's disease, cerebral dysfunctions and degenerative diseases of the brain. The aim of this study was to develop a software tool to enhance the available EEG in type C hospital for diagnosing stroke. Patients were examined using EEG and CT-Scan within 48 hours after the onset. The EEG signals were analyzed using spectral analysis of each channel, Welch analysis for detecting the decrement of frequency and BSI (brain symmetry index) for left and right hemisphere of the brain and other standards clinical examination. These signals were compared with the CT-scan to get abnormalities of the signals. There were some irregularities of the EEG signals in comparisons with CT-scan. All patients were examined stroke based on CT-scan. However, there were examined as normal, epileptic form, and stroke based on EEG readings. All of the BSI calculations were above the healthy subjects (0.042 ±0.005), which indicated that all subject were Acute Ischemic Stroke. While for some readings according to the conventional EEG indicated that 20% of the subjects were normal or within normal conditions. These were consistent with the ratios of power densities that all subjects were abnormal. Even these results were consistence with the CT Scans but they should be extended to more subjects in order to get a better conclusions.