Seizures, Electroencephalographic Abnormalities, and Outcome of Ischemic Stroke Patients

© 2017 The Authors. Epilepsia Open published by Wiley Periodicals Inc. on behalf of International League Against Epilepsy. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial, and no modifications or adaptations are made.
Objective: Seizures and electroencephalographic (EEG) abnormalities have been associated with unfavorable stroke functional outcome. However, this association may depend on clinical and imaging stroke severity. We set out to analyze whether epileptic seizures and early EEG abnormalities are predictors of stroke outcome after adjustment for age and clinical/imaging infarct severity. Methods: A prospective study was made on consecutive and previously independent acute stroke patients with a National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score ≥ 4 on admission and an acute anterior circulation ischemic lesion on brain imaging. All patients underwent standardized clinical and diagnostic assessment during admission and after discharge, and were followed for 12 months. Video-EEG (
This work was supported by the 2012 Research Grant in Cerebrovascular Diseases (C.B.; scientific promoter: Sociedade Portuguesa do AVC; sponsor: Tecnifar).