Journal of clinical neurophysiology : official publication of the American Electroencephalographic Society
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J Clin Neurophysiol · Jun 2016
ReviewClinical Development and Implementation of an Institutional Guideline for Prospective EEG Monitoring and Reporting of Delayed Cerebral Ischemia.
Delayed cerebral ischemia (DCI) is the most common and disabling complication among patients admitted to the hospital for subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). Clinical and radiographic methods often fail to detect DCI early enough to avert irreversible injury. We assessed the clinical feasibility of implementing a continuous EEG (cEEG) ischemia monitoring service for early DCI detection as part of an institutional guideline. ⋯ The guideline was successfully implemented over 27 months, during which neurocritical care physicians referred 71 SAH patients for combined transcranial Doppler ultrasound and cEEG monitoring. The quality assurance process determined a DCI rate of 48% among the monitored population, more than 90% of which occurred during the duration of cEEG monitoring (mean 6.9 days) beginning 2.7 days after symptom onset. An institutional guideline implementing cEEG for SAH ischemia monitoring and reporting is feasible to implement and efficiently identify patients at high baseline risk of DCI during the period of monitoring.
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J Clin Neurophysiol · Jun 2016
ReviewIntracranial Multimodality Monitoring for Delayed Cerebral Ischemia.
Management of patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage focuses on prevention of rebleeding by early treatment of the aneurysm, as well as detection and management of neurologic and medical complications. Early detection of delayed cerebral ischemia and management of modifiable contributing causes such as vasospasm take a central role, with the goal of preventing irreversible cerebral injury. ⋯ Recent consensus guidelines discuss the role of multimodality monitoring in acute brain injury. In this review, we evaluate these guidelines and the utility of each modality of multimodality monitoring in aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage.
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J Clin Neurophysiol · Jun 2016
Case ReportsUsing transcranial magnetic stimulation to evaluate the motor pathways after an intraoperative spinal cord injury and to predict the recovery of intraoperative transcranial electrical motor evoked potentials: A case report.
The authors report a case of unilateral loss of intraoperative transcranial electrical motor evoked potentials (TES MEP) associated with a spinal cord injury during scoliosis correction and the subsequent use of extraoperative transcranial magnetic stimulation to monitor the recovery of spinal cord function. The authors demonstrate the absence of TES MEPs and absent transcranial magnetic stimulation responses in the immediate postoperative period, and document the partial recovery of transcranial magnetic stimulation responses, which corresponded to partial recovery of TES MEPs. Intraoperative TES MEPs were enhanced using spatial facilitation technique, which enabled the patient to undergo further surgery to stabilize the spine and correct her scoliosis. This case report supports evidence of the use of extraoperative transcranial magnetic stimulation to predict the presence of intraoperative TES responses and demonstrates the usefulness of spatial facilitation to monitor TES MEPs in a patient with a preexisting spinal cord injury.