December 13, 2022

Sleep Quality Relatively Low in Patients With Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy

Article published by Neurology Advisor

Patients with juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME) have a poorer sleep quality and a more evening chronotype compared with control individuals, according to a case-control study published in Seizure: European Journal of Epilepsy.

The generalized, idiopathic syndrome JME onsets in adolescence to early adulthood and presents as myoclonic seizures, myoclonic-tonic-clonic seizures, generalized tonic-clonic (GTC) seizures, and absence seizures. There remains a paucity of data about the relationship between JME and sleep, which may be important as sleep deprivation has the potential to exacerbate seizure symptoms.

Patients (n=49) with JME and healthy control individuals (n=49) were recruited at the University of São Paulo in Brazil. Sleep parameters were evaluated using the Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire (MEQ), Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS), and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Group differences were compared.

Both groups of individuals were mean age, 27.53±9.84 and 28.55±10.88 years, 65% and 55% were women, and they had obtained 14.73±2.57 and 16.24±1.83 years of schooling (P =.009), respectively.

The researchers concluded, “Persons with JME had worse sleep quality and eveningness than individuals without this type of epilepsy within the same demographic characteristics. Thus, this study demonstrated that analyzing sleep characteristics and their approach may be relevant in clinical practice, given the close relationship between sleep and seizure control in this epilepsy syndrome.”

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