To Sleep or Not to Sleep: That Remains the Question

Abstract

In this issue, Gilbert et al1 have provided some new insights into the utility of sleep deprivation before recording of electroencephalograms (EEGs), to increase the likelihood of identification of interictal epileptiform discharges. A design flaw, which makes the results less universally applicable, is that the subjects and referring physicians both represented heterogeneous groups. The subjects included children who were known epileptics, patients with initial seizures, children with and without antiepileptic drug treatment, and children with a variety of other presenting complaints. The referring physicians were specialists and generalists treating differing populations. Nevertheless, by comparing 2 time periods during which subjects underwent EEG recording with a standard sleep deprivation protocol or a non–sleep-deprivation protocol, the authors were able to establish a large enough sample size to provide some important results. Of the 820 eligible subjects who underwent EEG recordings during …