Seizures during video-game play and other common leisure pursuits in knownepilepsy patients without visual sensitivity

Purpose: Some individuals who are negative to flash/pattern sensitivity hav e been reported to experience seizures while exposed to video games. This s tudy seeks to examine systematically whether exposure to video-game materia l is a risk factor for seizures in patients with chronic epilepsy without v isual sensitivity. Methods. Two hundred and twelve chronic epilepsy patients participated in t he study. All were negative to rigorous flash and pattern sensitivity testi ng. They were randomly allocated to a video game-playing session or to a pe riod of leisure (involving reading, physical exercise, puzzles, etc.) and t hen alternated between these activities for a fixed total of eight 45-min p eriods while undergoing video-EEG monitoring. The study ceased if the parti cipant experienced a clinical seizure. Results: Twenty-five of 212 subjects experienced a seizure while participat ing in the study. Thirteen seizures occurred during periods of video-game p lay, and 12 during alternative leisure. Conclusions: We have not identified a greater risk of seizures in patients with (not visually sensitive) epilepsy during videogame play compared with other common leisure pursuits. Furthermore, we exposed a large population ( 212 patients) mostly with severe epilepsy, mainly drug reduced and some sle ep deprived, to prolonged video game-playing without observing a significan t excess number of seizures. This finding provides strong support for the h ypothesis that seizures during video game play in the >95% of the epilepsy population without visual sensitivity are most likely to represent a chance occurrence, although, as always, each individual should be carefully asses sed.