"Daytime Sleepiness and Fatigue in Epileptic Patients, a Clinical and Electrophysiological Assessment “A Questionnaire Based Study

Abstract

People with epilepsy suffer from variant complaints that affect their daily life and impair their functional ability. Excessive daytime sleepiness and fatigue are amongst theses debilitating symptoms. They could be attributed to seizures occurrence, antiepileptic use or comorbid systemic diseases, sleep disorders, or CNS insults. These symptoms also vary according to different parameters such as type of epilepsy, number of medications as well as disease control. The commonly used scale for daytime sleepiness assessment is Epworth Sleepiness Scale “ ESS”, which is a seven-item questionnaire that evaluates sleepiness in the daily life activities of patients. Also, one of the objective methods for assessing sleepiness is the multiple sleep latency test “MSLT”, that evaluates sleepiness by calculating the median for sleep onset latency in four to five daytime naps. On the other hand, fatigue is commonly assessed by fatigue severity scale “ FSS”, that calculates the severity of fatigue using a nine- item questionnaire as well.