EVALUATION OF THE MONOLOG SPIKE AND WAVE MONITOR - A STUDY ON PATIENTS WITH TYPICAL ABSENCES

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness and accuracy o f the ''monolog,'' a pocket-size spike and wave monitor, in patients w ith typical absence seizures. Two observers were scoring independently and blindly from the monitor the number and duration of the 3 Hz spik e-wave discharges from the EEG recordings of 10 selected patients havi ng typical absences. High correlation was found between the two observ ers' scorings for both the number and the mean duration of events (Spe arman's rank correlation (r): 0.9970, P < 0.001, and 0.9758, P < 0.001 ), as well as between each of them and the ''monolog'' for the mean ev ent duration (r: 0.9848, P < 0.001, and 0.9788, P < 0.001). Conversely , a poor correlation was found between each of the observers and the ' 'monolog'' for the number of events (r: 0.7121, P = 0.021, and 0.6939, P = 0.026). In conclusion, the ''monolog'' accurately measured the du ration of 3 Hz spike-wave activity; however, it failed to accurately c ount the number of events that occurred throughout the recordings. We suggest that this device, with appropriate modification to its memory epochs, may be a useful tool in monitoring patients with typical absen ces.