Abstracts

Several studies have shown that sleep complaints are more common in epilepsy patients when compared to normal controls from the general population. The specific sleep complaints of an epilepsy patient may be different than those of a person without epilepsy seen in a sleep disorder center. This difference would have significant implications to the approach of treating epilepsy patients with a sleep disorder. Comparing the sleep complaints of epilepsy and non-epilepsy patients seen in consultation at a sleep disorders center could show this difference., A retrospective chart review was conducted on patients seen for initial consultation at the New York Sleep Institute over a 5 month period. All patients over 18 years of age were included. A total of 112 patients met these criteria, 39 in the epilepsy group and 73 in the control group. For each patient, information was collected from the initial consultation report written by a Board Certified Sleep Specialist. The data included basic demographic information, reason for referral, other sleep complaints, Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) score, co-morbidities (including if they have been diagnosed with epilepsy based on the International League Against Epilepsy criteria), medication history, family history, social history and Body Mass Index (BMI). The data was analyzed using Pearson chi-square analysis for categorical data and t-test for continuous variables., The chief complaint/reason for referral to the sleep institute was noted to be statistically different between the epilepsy group and the controls, via Pearson[apos]s chi-square analysis (p = 0.0035). In the epilepsy group, 48.7% had a chief complaint of insomnia, compared to 26.0 % in the control group (p=0.0157). Snoring was more common in the control group (34% vs. 18%) and subjective EDS was more common in epilepsy group (31% vs. 22%).
From the interview, all sleep disturbances that were afflicting each patient were recorded. Of these sleep disturbances, only difficulty falling asleep (Insomnia subtype) was significantly different between the two groups (56% of the epilepsy patients, 25% of controls, p = 0.0012). Subjective EDS, snoring, un-refresing sleep, restlessness in legs and difficulty staying asleep were statistically equally frequent between the groups., Insomnia is the prevailing chief complaint in patients with epilepsy that present to a sleep disorder center. Over all complaints, difficulty failing asleep was most identifying with the epilepsy patients. Both of these problems were significantly different from the ones seen in patients without epilepsy.,