Usage of EpiFinder clinical decision support in the assessment of epilepsy.
Epilepsy Behav
; 82: 140-143, 2018 05.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-29625364
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
The diagnosis of epilepsy is at times elusive for both neurologists and nonneurologists, resulting in delays in diagnosis and therapy. The development of screening methods has been identified as a priority in response to this diagnostic and therapeutic gap. EpiFinder is a novel clinical decision support tool designed to enhance the process of information gathering and integration of patient/proxy respondent data. It is designed specifically to take key terms from a patient's history and incorporate them into a heuristic algorithm that dynamically produces differential diagnoses of epilepsy syndromes.OBJECTIVE:
The objective of this study was to test the usability and diagnostic accuracy of the clinical decision support application EpiFinder in an adult population.METHODS:
Fifty-seven patients were prospectively identified upon admission to the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit (EMU) for episode classification from January through June of 2017. Based on semiologic input, the application generates a list of epilepsy syndromes. The EpiFinder-generated diagnosis for each subject was compared to the final diagnosis obtained via continuous video electroencephalogram (cVEEG) monitoring.RESULTS:
Fifty-three patients had habitual events recorded during their EMU stay. A diagnosis of epilepsy was confirmed (with cVEEG monitoring) in 26 patients while 27 patients were found to have a diagnosis other than epilepsy. The algorithm appropriately predicted differentiation between the presence of an epilepsy syndrome and an alternative diagnosis with 86.8% (46/53 participants) accuracy. EpiFinder correctly identified the presence of epilepsy with a sensitivity of 86.4% (95% confidence interval [CI] 65.0-97.1) and specificity of 85.1% (95% CI 70.2-96.4).CONCLUSION:
The initial testing of the EpiFinder algorithm suggests possible utility in differentiating between an epilepsy syndrome and an alternative diagnosis in adult patients.Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Algorithms
/
Decision Support Systems, Clinical
/
Epilepsy
Type of study:
Diagnostic_studies
/
Observational_studies
/
Prognostic_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Limits:
Adult
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
/
Middle aged
Language:
En
Journal:
Epilepsy Behav
Journal subject:
CIENCIAS DO COMPORTAMENTO
/
NEUROLOGIA
Year:
2018
Document type:
Article