Wearable devices for seizure detection: Is it time to translate into our clinical practice?

Abstract

With the exponential development of mobile health technologies over the past ten years, there has been a growing interest in the potential applications in the field of epilepsy, and specifically for seizure detection. Better detection of seizures is probably one of the best ways to improve patient safety. Overall, we are observing an exponential increase in the number of non-EEG based seizure detection systems and a progressive homogenization of their evaluation procedures. Most importantly, the properties of these devices for detection of tonic-clonic seizures are now very interesting, both in terms of sensitivity and in terms of false-alarm rates. Accordingly, we might expect that these be used in clinical practice in the near future, especially in patients at high risk of seizure-related injuries or sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP).

Keywords: Epilepsy; Seizure detection.