Sleep characteristics of patients with epilepsy with pure sleep-related seizures

Objective: Our aim was to investigate the clinical features and sleep characteristics of patients with pure sleep-related seizures. Methods: Patients with pure sleep epilepsy were prospectively enrolled and their clinical, EEG, and MRI findings investigated. The Medical Outcomes Study Sleep Scale (MOS-SS) was administered after receiving consent. Results: Thirty-nine of 1401 consecutive patients (2.7%) with pure sleep-related seizures were included. Of these, 30 (76.9%) had epilepsy of unknown cause and 7 had epilepsy with known structural etiologies. Twenty-seven patients reported less than one seizure per month and 19 had been seizure free for at least 1 year. Thirty-four patients participated in our MOS-SS study. Comparison of sleep problems between those with epilepsy and healthy controls and between the subgroups with frequent and rare seizures did not reveal significant differences. Conclusion: Patients with pure sleep seizures had mostly undetermined etiology usually with a good prognosis, and this rare condition did not seem to affect their sleep quality. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.