Sixty-five million people around the world have epilepsy. In the United States, 1 in 26 people will develop epilepsy at some point in their life. Epilepsy is a condition characterized by disturbances in the electrical activity in the brain, resulting in a seizure. Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP) is believed to be the leading cause of epilepsy-related deaths, affecting 1 in 1000 people with epilepsy. SUDEP is cited as the cause of death in an epileptic person when no other cause of death is found. Although very little is known about the causes of SUDEP, experts in the medical community generally agree that the incidence of SUDEP can be reduced through improved early detection methods and monitoring of patients when they are about to have or are actively suffering from a seizure.
Project Scope
This project proposes to deliver a safe, comfortable, and easy to use device that can be worn overnight. It will use available physiological data to accurately predict an impending seizure, and will alert the user and emergency medical services a short time (on the order of minutes) before the seizure begins. The proposed device will be delivered to Dr. David Lardizabal and the BME 401 instructors, including the necessary software for seizure prediction and a user manual for safe operation by the end of April 2018.
Clinical Need
There is a need to alert individuals who are at high risk for seizure during sleep to an impending epileptic event to decrease the frequency of Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP).