Electroencephalogram (EEG) in the management of epilepsy in children.

Electroencephalogram (EEG) has an important role in the management of seizure disorder in children. It helps in diagnosis and classification of epilepsy, choosing of antiepileptic medication and prediction of prognosis. When history of epilepsy is unclear, EEG can help to distinguish epileptiform discharges from its counterpart. But EEG has limitations. In epilepsy, EEG has variable range of sensitivity and specificity. Hereby, during interpretation of EEG, clinical situation should not be ignored. Interictal EEG has important diagnostic and prognostic value in epilepsy. But caution is needed during evaluation of significance of interictal epileptiform discharge (IED). Methods like recording of EEG in awake and sleep state, hyperventilation and photic stimulation enhances the yield of interictal EEG. Long term EEG recording has an important role in the assessment of patients who present diagnostic or management difficulties following clinical evaluation and routine EEG.