Association of electroencephalography changes in patients with acute ischemic stroke

Abstract

Introduction: Electroencephalography or EEG is an elegant diagnostic tool for the identification of acute ischemic stroke. It corresponds well with its locale and extent. We aim to study the association of EEG changes in patients with acute ischemic stroke.

Materials and methods: A prospective observational study was conducted among 45 patients presented at Upendra Devkota Memorial National Institute of Neurological and Allied Sciences with a diagnosis of acute ischemic stroke from August to October 2017. All eligible patients were subjected to one hour of conventional video encephalography. A descriptive statistics was performed for the baseline variables and bivariate analysis was done to determine the association of EEG changes with all the other baseline characteristics that included demographic characteristics, latency, National Institute of Health Service Scale score, modified Rankin Scale Score, side of lesions and radiological characteristics. Data were analysed using IBM–SPSS version 20.

Results: Majority of participants were male and the mean age of the study population was 61.9 years. Of the total 45 patients, 44.4% had left sided lesion with middle cerebral artery infarction accounting 66.7%. Normal EEG was found in 46.7%. There was statistically significant association of EEG with mRS (p=0.003) and side of lesion (p=0.029).

Conclusion: EEG can be a useful diagnostic tool for detecting side of lesion and degree of morbidity.