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How EEG is contributing to the diagnosis and treatment of children

This exciting Neuroelectrics adventure allows me to meet and spend time with admirable doctors in different areas that are pushing with their knowledge and experience what mankind once thought was science fiction.

One of the areas in which such improvement has been made is the pediatric field. Statistics show how a gigantic step has been made in the last 30 years : Child mortality rates for children under 5 years old have dropped from 17 million in 1970 to 7 milion in 2011!

The good news on mortality drop is now drifting the attention to the challenge of reducing on one side, the morbidity (babies surviving but with lasting complications) of the preterm babies (cerebral palsy, epilepsy, or behavioural, emotion and learning capabilities) as well as improving diagnostic and treatment of children with brain related pathologies.

EEG in chidren

EEG is a neurophysiologic technique primarily used in children in the evaluation of epilepsy disorders and has also proven to be of use in learning problems, attention disorders or development delay.

EEG can be used in children in two ways:

eeg-applications

Small patients and big opportunities

The above examples are only a grasp of the application of EEG in children in the current practice.

EEG is still has challenges to face to treat our small patients (such as easy of use, comfort, capability to monitor brain activity at home or need for expert interpretation of the data) but it is my believe that the use of EEG will be spread in the future in many different fields of pediatric practice.

Using John´s Lennon song, I would like to Imagine a future in which children´s brains are monitored in an easy way throughout their different growth states (ideally as easy and usual as monitoring their body temperature) so that the best diagnostics and treatments are applied at the right time. I am sure this will allow a new gigantic step into reducing morbidity and improving their health.

Our little patients’ brain rules their body and growth so we better take a close look 😉

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