RT Book, Section A1 Sirven, Joseph I. A1 Stern, John M. SR Print(0) ID 1101646527 T1 Foreword T2 Atlas of Video-EEG Monitoring YR 2011 FD 2011 PB McGraw-Hill Education PP New York, NY SN 9780071597425 LK neurology.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1101646527 RD 2024/03/28 AB Epilepsy is among the most common serious disorders of the brain, ranking with depression and other affective disorders, Alzheimer disease and other dementias, and substance abuse. According to the World Health Organization, the global burden of disease represented by epilepsy is equivalent to lung cancer in men and breast cancer in women. Epilepsy is a treatable condition; however, in the United States and other industrialized countries, 80% of the cost of epilepsy is due to patients whose seizures are not controlled by antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). Assuming that the appropriate medications are prescribed at therapeutic doses and that patients take their medications correctly, failure to achieve seizure control can mean that the ictal events are not epileptic, the seizure type and epilepsy syndrome diagnoses are incorrect, or the AEDs are ineffective. Video-electroencephalographic monitoring (VEM) is the diagnostic test of choice to determine whether the uncontrolled events are epileptic and if so, to correctly classify the seizure type and epilepsy syndrome. In the situation where AEDs are ineffective, VEM is indicated to determine whether the patient might be a candidate for surgical treatment, which, in carefully chosen patients, is highly likely to result in complete freedom from disabling seizures. Given that 30 to 40% of patients in the United States and other industrialized countries continue to have seizures despite presumably appropriate pharmacotherapy, there is a tremendous need for VEM services. Although there has been a considerable increase in the establishment of such facilities in the United States, clearly only a small percentage of the ∼1 million patients in this country who continue to have seizures despite AED treatment have had access to VEM. With current, and anticipated future, increases in VEM availability, the Atlas of Video-EEG Monitoring is sorely needed.