Article published by Specialty Pharmacy Continuum
The use of smartphone video to capture infantile spasms (IS) significantly reduces the time to diagnosis and treatment, according to a new study. Researchers assessed the difference in the amount of time to electroencephalogram (EEG), diagnosis and treatment of 80 infants with confirmed infantile epileptic spasms syndrome with or without accompanying video capture of their spasms. The infants whose spasms were captured on smartphone video were seen at a clinic a median of nine days earlier, had their first EEG 16 days earlier, and were diagnosed and started treatment 17 days earlier compared with the group that had no video capture. They also had a 25% greater response to initial standard treatment. “Infantile spasms are a pretty detrimental type of seizure that infants can have around 5 months of age,” explained study co-author Douglas R. Nordli III, MD, a pediatric epileptologist at the University of Chicago. “When most people hear the word ‘seizure,’ they think of a grand mal seizure involving uncontrolled movements, but this is very different. Infantile spasms involve just a slight twitch with the head going down and the arms going up, and an uncomfortable cry afterward. The description, especially for a distressed parent, is hard to relay, and seeing the video really is worth a thousand words.”