Portable EEG Recorder for Household Surveys

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Advanced Medical Electronics Corporation (AME) proposes to develop a miniature portable electroencephalograph (EEG) recorder that can be easily used in the home to collect data for longitudinal surveys of the elderly. The device will be capable of using new dry electrode technology that promises to greatly simplify the attachment of EEG scalp electrodes. Dry electrode technology will allow a minimally trained person to make the attachment to a patient and collect a 30 minute segment of data. In phase I, AME will identify the most promising dry electrode technology to integrate with the recorder in phase II. The proposed pocket size EEG recorder will be small enough to be worn relatively unobtrusive during daily activities. This will allow the device to be used in ambulatory epilepsy monitoring applications and will create a larger market for the portable EEG recorder. Researchers conducting longitudinal EEG surveys will benefit by sharing a market with ambulatory epilepsy monitoring because of reduced production costs. Alzheimer's disease (AD) is an age-related and irreversible brain disorder that develops over a period of years. AD symptoms typically first appear after age 65 and are the subject of longitudinal studies. There has been recent interest in the use of the electroencephalogram (EEG) to screen patients and identify the first signs of AD. There is extensive literature that reports changes in quantitative electroencephalogram (QEEG) with aging and a relationship between magnitude of changes and degree of clinical deterioration in progressive dementia. The use of EEG provides a low cost alternative to more sophisticated tools like MRI and PET to distinguish characteristics of brain function and anatomy that indicate future problems. The proposed miniature portable EEG recorder with easily applied dry electrode technology can be applied in the home to collect data for longitudinal surveys of the elderly.