Accuracy of patient-reported spell duration: A comparative study.

Clinicians rely heavily on patient histories to make medical diagnoses, most of which are inherently subjective and prone to inaccuracies. The aim of this study is to compare the subjective versus objective duration of spells through a retrospective chart review of patients admitted to the epilepsy monitoring unit at our tertiary care medical center. One hundred patients were analyzed. Differences in the accuracy of subjective estimations versus objective duration were compared by age, sex, focal versus generalized, location (frontal versus non-frontal), and spell type (focal aware versus impaired awareness and epileptic versus non-epileptic). Our data show that patients are poor subjective estimators, with 73% of patients overestimating the duration of their spells. We did not find differences in estimated duration by age, sex, seizure location or spell type. A notable exception was patients with generalized convulsive seizures, who accurately reported spell duration to within 17 s. This is likely because these seizures are stereotypical, and patients/family time them. Moreover, patients with non-epileptic spells were worse estimators of their spell duration than those with epileptic spells. In addition, although the prefrontal lobe plays a role in time estimation, we did not find that patients with frontal lobe seizures were worse estimators than those with non-frontal seizures, but invasive monitoring can more precisely localize seizures within areas of the frontal lobe responsible for time estimation. Our data emphasize the importance of not relying solely on patient-reported time estimation in diagnosing and developing treatment plans and instead instructing patients to time their spells.

Vivid dreams are associated with a high percentage of REM sleep: a prospective study in veterans.

STUDY OBJECTIVES: Vivid dreams are dreams that feel real or are associated with dream enactment behavior. They are prevalent in veterans, especially in those with psychiatric disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorders. Such psychiatric disorders have known association with abnormalities in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Vivid dreams are also described in neurological conditions, such Lewy body dementias, which are also associated with REM sleep abnormality. Although vivid dreams occur in neuropsychiatric disorders that have REM sleep abnormalities, there are no studies that have directly investigated an association between vivid dreams and REM sleep. We sought to study vivid dreams and REM sleep in veterans. METHODS: Veterans undergoing polysomnography at our hospital were invited to enroll. Participants completed a dream-related questionnaire the morning after their polysomnography. RESULTS: We prospectively enrolled 505 veterans. After a night in the sleep laboratory, 196 of 504 (39%) reported experiencing a dream, and, of those, 117 of 190 (62%) described their dream as vivid. Discrepancies in patient totals are secondary to missing questionnaire data. Our novel finding is that participants with a high percentage of REM sleep (above 25%) were more than twice likely to report a vivid dream than participants with a lower percentage of REM sleep (P < .0001). Nonvivid dreams were not associated with a high percentage of REM sleep. CONCLUSIONS: Vivid dreams are associated with a high percentage of REM sleep. Further research into the role of REM sleep abnormalities in vivid dreams may help to advance understanding of neuropsychiatric disorders. CITATION: Fattal D, Platti N, Hester S, Wendt L. Vivid dreams are associated with a high percentage of REM sleep: a prospective study in veterans. J Clin Sleep Med. 2023;19(9):1661-1668.

Ocular Lateral Deviation as a Vestibular Sign to Improve Detection of Posterior Circulation Strokes: A Review of the Literature.

BACKGROUND: Posterior circulation stroke can present with dizziness/vertigo without other general neurological symptoms or signs, making it difficult to detect, and missed stroke can deteriorate. Therefore, a sign that can be easily identified during an examination would be helpful to improve the detection of this type of stroke. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this review is to highlight an ocular sign that is seen in posterior circulation strokes called ocular lateral deviation (OLD). OLD is mostly seen in dorsolateral medullary strokes, and it is also seen in pontine and cerebellar strokes. OLD is detected by asking a patient to look straight ahead and then briefly close their eyes. Upon re-opening their eyes, the examiner will see that the eyes have deviated to one side; the patient's eyes will then make corrective saccade(s) to return to looking straight ahead. Complete eye deviation is a central sign of posterior circulation stroke. DISCUSSION: OLD is an under-recognized vestibular ocular sign of central vestibulopathies including posterior circulation stroke. The most common location is in the dorsolateral medulla, where one-third of such strokes have complete OLD. Eye deviation can also be appreciated on computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging. OLD can be detected up to 6 months after a posterior circulation stroke. CONCLUSIONS: Checking for the sign of complete eye deviation in patients with dizziness/vertigo could be a simple, quick method for detecting posterior circulation stroke, and a means to improving the patients' outcome.

Body weight and obstructive sleep apnea: a mathematical relationship between body mass index and apnea-hypopnea index in veterans.

STUDY OBJECTIVES: A high body mass index (BMI) is a risk factor for obstructive sleep apnea. However, to our knowledge there is no reported equation that quantifies the relationship between weight, as measured by BMI, and apnea severity, as assessed by the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI). Our objective was to find a mathematical relationship between BMI and AHI. METHODS: We prospectively recruited 434 veterans from our polysomnography laboratory. Veterans already undergoing a sleep study were approached, and those who consented were enrolled. The veterans who enrolled in our study also participated in their scheduled sleep study. This study was approved by our institutional review board. RESULTS: We found a simple mathematical relationship between BMI and AHI: for every 1-point drop in BMI (corresponding to 5-8 pounds, depending on a person's height), AHI decreases by 6.2%. And limiting BMI to 25-40 kg/m2 (which includes about 80% of the BMIs), then AHI drops by 7.1%. Simply put as a rule of thumb: For every 7-pounds drop in weight, expect a 7% drop in AHI. CONCLUSIONS: To our knowledge, this is the first simple mathematical equation that associates the severity of weight with the severity of apnea in veterans. This equation can be a practical rule of thumb that can be implemented in clinics to predict the amount of weight a patient needs to lose to decrease their apnea, which might help motivate patients to lose weight. CITATION: Fattal D, Hester S, Wendt L. Body weight and obstructive sleep apnea: a mathematical relationship between body mass index and apnea-hypopnea index in veterans. J Clin Sleep Med. 2022;18(12):2723-2729.

Room tilt illusion in epilepsy.

Room tilt illusion is a rare phenomenon in which a person transiently perceives the surrounding environment as tilted to one side. Epilepsy is one of the presumed causes of room tilt illusion, but this has never been proven. We present a case of room tilt illusion that is epileptic in nature, documented by video- EEG monitoring. Our Patient is a 30-year-old woman with 11 years history of bi-monthly spells of sudden tilt of the whole environment counterclockwise for a duration of one to two seconds. These spells were initially diagnosed as psychogenic. She was then admitted to our video-EEG monitoring unit. She had three of her typical spells during monitoring, with corresponding changes of brief generalized spike-wave burst on EEG that coincided temporarily with her symptoms. The video otherwise did not reveal any sway or tilt of the patient herself. She was started on topiramate with resolution of her symptoms. She remained spell-free when seen during follow-up, six months later. This case illustrates a first example of room tilt illusion that is documented to be epileptic in nature. This case adds to the varied nature of how epilepsy can manifest in patients, which may support improved diagnosis and treatment of epileptic patients.

The Bucket Test Improves Detection of Stroke in Patients With Acute Dizziness.

BACKGROUND: It is challenging to detect posterior circulation strokes in patients presenting to the emergency department (ED) with acute dizziness. The current approach uses a combinatorial head-impulse, nystagmus, and test-of-skew method and is sensitive enough to differentiate central causes from peripheral ones. However, it is difficult to perform and underused. Further, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain is not always available and can have low sensitivity for detecting posterior circulation strokes. OBJECTIVES: We evaluated the feasibility and utility of the bucket test (BT), which measures the difference between patient's subjective perception of the visual vertical and the true vertical, as a screening tool for stroke in patients presenting to the ED with acute dizziness. METHODS: In this work, we prospectively enrolled 81 patients that presented to our academic medical center ED with dizziness as their chief complaint. The BT was performed 3 times for every patient. RESULTS: Seventy-one patients met the study criteria and were included in the analysis. Ten patients were excluded because of a history of drug-seeking behavior. There were no reported difficulties performing the BT. Six patients (8%) were diagnosed with ischemic stroke on MRI and 1 additional patient was diagnosed with transient ischemic attack and found to have a stroke on subsequent MRI. All 7 patients with dizziness attributed to cerebrovascular etiology had an abnormal BT, resulting in a sensitivity of 100% (95% confidence interval [CI] 59-100%). The specificity of the BT was 38% (95% CI 24-52%). The positive predictive value of the BT for detecting stroke was 18% (95% CI 15-21%). CONCLUSIONS: The BT is an easy, cheap, safe, and quick test that is feasible and sensitive to screen acutely dizzy patients for stroke in the ED.

Patients With Vestibular Migraine are More Likely to Have Occipital Headaches than those With Migraine Without Vestibular Symptoms.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether patients with vestibular migraine are more likely to suffer from an occipital headache than patients with migraine without vestibular symptoms. BACKGROUND: Vestibular migraine is an underdiagnosed disorder in which migraine is associated with vestibular symptoms. Anatomical evidence and symptomatology hint at the involvement of brain structures in the posterior fossa (back of the head location). We hypothesized that vestibular migraine patients are more likely than migraineurs without vestibular symptoms to experience headaches located in the back of the head, that is, occipital headaches. METHODS: A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted at the University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics. Chart analysis of 169 patients was performed. The primary outcome was the location of the headache in vestibular migraine patients and migraineurs without vestibular symptoms. The secondary outcomes included the association of vestibular migraine with gender, age at onset of headache, age at onset of vestibular symptoms (such as vertigo, head motion-induced dizziness), aura, motion sickness, other associated symptoms, family history of headaches, and family history of motion sickness. RESULTS: In vestibular migraine group, 45/103 (44%) had occipital location for their headaches vs 12/66 (18%) in migraine patients without vestibular symptoms, for an odd's ratio of 3.5 (95% CI = 1.7-7.2, P < .001). Additionally, the age at onset of headache was greater in the vestibular migraine group (28 ± 12 vs 18 ± 9 years, P < .001) and motion sickness was more common (41/98 (42%) in the vestibular migraine group, 1/64 (2%) in the migraine without vestibular symptoms group, P < .001). CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that patients with vestibular migraine are more likely to have occipital headaches than patients with migraine without vestibular symptoms. Our data support the initiation of a prospective study to determine whether a patient presenting with occipital headaches, with late onset of age of headache, and with a history of motion sickness is at an increased risk for the possible development of vestibular migraine.

Brain death: Radiologic signs of a non-radiologic diagnosis.

Brain death is a clinical diagnosis characterized by the irreversible loss of neurologic function caused by global injury to the brain, including the brain stem. This is often caused by trauma and subarachnoid hemorrhage amongst other etiologies. This injury results in extensive cerebral edema, a rise in intracranial pressure, and eventual cessation of cerebral blood flow. Although brain death is a clinical diagnosis, ancillary and confirmatory tests are widely used. These are categorized into imaging that demonstrates absence of cerebral blood flow and electroencephalography that demonstrates absence of cortical electrical activity. Cerebral angiography, transcranial Doppler, and cerebral scintigraphy are the only imaging studies to have been validated by the American Academy of Neurology for diagnosis of brain death. However, characteristic findings on computed tomography, computed tomography perfusion, computed tomography angiography, magnetic resonance imaging, and magnetic resonance angiography may suggest the diagnosis. In this article, the clinical criteria, pathophysiology, pathology, and variations in current practice of brain death diagnosis are discussed, and the imaging findings of brain death are reviewed.

Rubral lateropulsion due to vertebral artery dissection in a patient with Klippel-Feil syndrome.

BACKGROUND: Neurologic deficits in patients with Klippel-Feil syndrome usually are attributed to direct compression of neuronal structures or hypoperfusion secondary to compression of the vertebral arteries by bony abnormalities. OBJECTIVE: To describe a 38-year-old woman with known Klippel-Feil syndrome who developed lateropulsion. RESULTS: The results of magnetic resonance imaging were consistent with rubrothalamic stroke. The cerebral angiogram confirmed vertebral artery dissection at the level of her previously observed bony abnormality. CONCLUSIONS: Hypermobility adjacent to fused vertebrae subjects the vertebral artery to increased shear forces. Thus, Klippel-Feil syndrome may be a predisposing factor for vertebral artery dissection. Moreover, to our knowledge, this case represents the second known case of rubral lateropulsion.