Patient Resources

Recording the changes in the brain’s natural electrical activity is a well-established way of diagnosing neurological disease and monitoring the progress of treatment. The electroencephalograph, (commonly referred to as EEG) has been a key noninvasive tool in medicine since the 1920’s when it was first described in humans by Dr. Hans Berger.

In today’s medicine, the EEG is commonly used to diagnose seizure disorders (such as epilepsy), assess neurological injury, plan surgery, assess brain integrity following injury or stroke, and assess sleep problems. Typically, EEGs are performed by neurologists at the request of the patient’s personal physician or pediatrician. EEGs can be performed on an outpatient basis in a neurologist’s office or at an EEG clinic, or in an inpatient hospital setting. Routine EEGs typically involve recording times between 20 to 40 minutes. Longer recordings are done for diagnosing sleep disorders or for planning neurological surgery. For more information on specific medical conditions where EEG recordings are commonly used, go to the Patient Resources List page.

EGI’s line of digital EEG systems provides two key innovations that improve patient comfort and diagnostic yield. EGI’s Geodesic EEG Systems are painless because they use the HydroCel™ Geodesic Sensor Net (known as the “Net”), which is an innovative technology that allows EEG electrodes to be applied quickly and without painful scalp abrasion. The result of using EGI’s Net is increased patient comfort and reduced overall procedure time. Even children—who usually resist the “scrape and paste” technique that traditional methods use to apply EEG electrodes—find that the EGI Net makes having an EEG much easier to take, and some find it to be almost fun. To see the procedure for having an EEG done using an EGI Net, view the Geodesic EEG Sensor Net for Children video.