Common Abnormal EEG in Neurocritical Ill Patients

Critically ill patients have a high risk of various types of nerve damage, and if not detected and treated in time, this may lead to permanent neurological dysfunction. EEG is extremely sensitive to the evaluation of cerebral cortical function in patients with brain injury and can promote the early recognition and management of abnormal conditions in critically ill patients. Therefore, correct identification of abnormal EEG waveforms in critically ill patients and understanding of its clinical guiding significance are the basis of critically ill EEG interpretation and the difficult issues with which clinicians deal their work. This chapter, combined with the EEG legend, introduces how to identify epileptiform discharge, periodic discharge (PD), ictal-interictal continuum (IIC), abnormal slow-wave activity, and special coma EEG, such as α and β coma, BS pattern, nonreactive low-voltage slow activity, and ECS. This chapter focuses on explaining the pathological mechanism of each abnormal waveform, the possible disease direction, and the guiding significance for clinical treatment and prognostic judgment, providing a reference for clinicians to read and interpret severely abnormal EEGs.