In <fiona.wilkes-1103971029330001 at x5agate02.sed.mq.edu.au>
fiona.wilkes at speced.sed.mq.edu.au (Fiona Wilkes) writes:
>>Knowing little about EEG reports, I was wondering if someone could
make
>suggestions as to what the following could indicate :
>>-Post central 9-11CPS alpha of high amplitude occuring in well
developed
>spindles over both hemispheres and blocks in visual attention.
>-Low voltage background fast activity during resting record.
>-During resting record and more so on overbreathing, episodic bursts
of
>bilateral high voltage 3-4CPS slow wave activity coming more
prominently
>from the left hemisphere
>-Photic stimulation evokes no change.
>>The owner of this EEG has a history of "blackouts", not always losing
>consciousness. No drug or alcohol abuse and a normal CT.
>>What do you think?
>>Thanks
FIRST: I am not a neurologist, so don't take this as expert opinion;
but isn't 3-4Hz associated with "absence" (pronounce it as French...),
i.e. petit mal? One would expect only very brief interruptions (e.g. a
few seconds at a time), typically, but I have read of "absence status",
in which a confused or dull state might last much longer (e.g.
days)--indeed, I think I once tested such a patient.
Rather than name it (and possibly mis-name; or mislead us, according to
our idiosyncratic expectations and assumptions), describe it: what do
you mean by "blackouts"? As used in the context of alcoholism, this
refers to a person's moving and acting as if conscious, but having no
memory of what he did.
Frank LeFever
New York Neuropsychology Group
