Melatonin: Experience in its Use for Recording Sleep EEG in Children and Review of the Literature

Abstract

Sleep is known to improve the yield of EEG recording in children but is often difficult to obtain. In order to evaluate the efficacy and to test the practicability of oral melatonin in obtaining sleep for EEG recording, we studied its use in 70 children. Sleep was obtained in 56 children (80%) with a mean sleep latency onset of 25 ± 7.9 min (15-45) after melatonin administration, and a mean sleep duration of 17.1 ± 8.6 min (5-55). 28 children (50%) woke up spontaneously after 13.2 ± 7.9 min (5-40). Among 18 children with severe behaviour problems that made interpretable EEG recording in the awake state impossible, sleep was obtained in 13 (72%) children. The rare symptoms reported (4%) were not reliably related to the use of melatonin. The study shows a very good efficacy in sleep induction for EEG recording, even in children with severe behaviour problems. Sleep duration was, however, short with a high proportion of spontaneous arousals but in all patients it was sufficient for an initial diagnosis or control of the evolution of epilepsy.