Clinical guidelines: Use of non-invasive EEG and video-EEG in epilepsy

EEG is one of the most specific diagnostic tests used in the clinical practice in epilepsy, with a 43% sensibility after the first seizure. Epileptiform changes are detected in the first routine EEG in 29 to 55% of patients with epilepsy; and abnormal EEG occurred in 0.5 to 2.5% of patients with neurological diseases. Sleep deprivation is a useful maneuver to increase the EEG sensibility. Quantitative EEG is the mathematical procedure through digital software of conventional EEG register. It has a low global utility, so it should be considered a test with uncertain clinical application. Video-EEG is the simultaneous register of clinical phenomena through video surveillance and EEG cerebral electrical activity, it's a safe and accessible test in most of neurological centers. It's recommended for the diagnosis of difficult paroxysmal events and in patients with non-epileptic seizures. Video-EEG has a 23-96% of sensibility and 56-100% of specificity for the differential diagnosis.