Journal of Child Neurology

Dr. James Wheless and his team at UTHSC published an extremely favourable clinical assessment of the Emfit Movement Monitor on January 29th in the Journal of Child Neurology!

“The Emfit monitor was designed to detect tonic-clonic seizures occurring while patients are in bed asleep and not under direct supervision. In our study, the Emfit monitor was very effective in meeting this objective. The monitor detected 84.6% of the generalized tonic-clonic seizures occurring in sleep. The monitor, though not able to detect all seizure types with high sensitivity, is effective in detecting generalized tonic-clonic seizures that have been linked with a higher risk of sudden unexplained death in epilepsy.” When asked why the monitor did not alert to 2 of the 13 GTCs recorded, Dr. Wheless stated that “the seizure types that were not detected were without a significant motor component or ones where the motor component is very brief, lasting only 3-5 seconds.” We, Emfit, understand this because there is a time delay built into the monitor. In order to prevent false alarms from normal movements that may simulate an event, the monitor has an adjustable pre-set delay of 10, 13, 16 or 20 seconds. Movements need to continue for the set delay time for the alarm to sound, so sustained movements lasting 3-5 seconds will not trigger an alarm.

The study concludes: “The Emfit movement monitor detected a significant percentage of tonic-clonic seizures in patients who were sleeping, and it may offer a means for detecting nocturnal generalized-tonic clonic seizures in children with epilepsy.”

The article is available by subscription: http://jcn.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/01/29/0883073812471858