Rare sleep-related convulsive seizures in elderly subjects

Some reports in the literautre described in elderly subjects the possibte occurrence of epilepsy with rare and exclusively sleep-related convulsive seizures. A low rate of interictal epileptiform EEG abnormalities (IEAs) in elderly patients with epilepsy has been reported. In our series of 13 subjects with rare sleep-retated tonic-clonic seizures, aged 60 years and over, the 24 hour-ambulatory EEG recording performed in 9 subjects detected focal IEAs only during NREM steep in 7 subjects, and exclusively during NREM slow wave sleep (stages 3+4) in 5 of them. EEG recordings during spontaneous sleep including slow-wave sleep stages might have diagnostic relevance in elderly with sleep-related convulsive seizures.