Special report on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on clinical EEG and Research and consensus recommendations for the safe use of EEG
Introduction. The global COVID-19 pandemic has affected the economy, daily life, and mental/physical health. The latter includes the use of electroencephalography (EEG) in clinical practice and research. We report a survey of the impact of COVID-19 on the use of clinical EEG in practice and research...
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| Published in: | Clinical EEG and neuroscience Vol. 52; no. 1; pp. 3 - 28 |
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Los Angeles, CA
SAGE Publications
01-01-2021
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | Introduction. The global COVID-19 pandemic has affected the economy, daily life, and mental/physical health. The latter includes the use of electroencephalography (EEG) in clinical practice and research. We report a survey of the impact of COVID-19 on the use of clinical EEG in practice and research in several countries, and the recommendations of an international panel of experts for the safe application of EEG during and after this pandemic.Methods. Fifteen clinicians from 8 different countries and 25 researchers from 13 different countries reported the impact of COVID-19 on their EEG activities, the procedures implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and precautions planned or already implemented during the reopening of EEG activities.Results. Of the 15 clinical centers responding, 11 reported a total stoppage of all EEG activities, while 4 reduced the number of tests per day. In research settings, all 25 laboratories reported a complete stoppage of activity, with 7 laboratories reopening to some extent since initial closure. In both settings, recommended precautions for restarting or continuing EEG recording included strict hygienic rules, social distance, and assessment for infection symptoms among staff and patients/participants.Conclusions. The COVID-19 pandemic interfered with the use of EEG recordings in clinical practice and even more in clinical research. We suggest updated best practices to allow safe EEG recordings in both research and clinical settings. The continued use of EEG is important in those with psychiatric diseases, particularly in times of social alarm such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: S. Campanella was funded by the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (F.N.R.S., Belgium) and the Brugmann Foundation (CHU Brugmann, Brussels, Belgium). C. Babiloni is supported by the European Committee for the development of the H2020-EU.1.3.1.H2020-MSCA-ITN-ETN-2017-2020 (ID 721281) project with the short title "Blood Biomarker-based Diagnostic Tools for Early Stage Alzheimer's Disease (BBDiag). M Balconi was founded by Catholic University of Milan (Italy), Grant for Research, D1.1. 2019. V. Betti was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programGrant Agreement No. 759651. L. Bianchi and G. Di Lorenzo were partially funded by a Grant from the Ministry of Defence. M. Brunovsky was supported by the project LO1611, with a financial support from the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic under the NPU I program and by the project PROGRES Q35 of the 3rd Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague. C. Escera was supported by the Generalitat de Catalunya (SGR2017-974), the ICREA Academia Distinguished Professorship Award, and the Maria de Maeztu Unit of Excellence (MDM-2017-0729). D. Fisher was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and Research Nova Scotia. B. Guntekin was funded by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey TUBITAK (grant number 214S111). R. Ishii was funded by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) 19K08017 from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan. M. Kiang was supported by the Miner's Lamp Innovation Fund in the Prevention and Early Detection of Severe Mental Illness, and an Academic Scholar Award, at the University of Toronto (Department of Psychiatry); and a grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (PJT-168989). |
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| Bibliography: | SourceType-Other Sources-1 content type line 63 ObjectType-Editorial-2 ObjectType-Commentary-1 Oliver Pogarell and Salvatore Campanella had the idea to write the paper and furnished a first draft. All other authors contributed in writing new parts and/or in amending/revising all parts of the manuscript. Author Contributions |
| ISSN: | 1550-0594 2169-5202 |
| DOI: | 10.1177/1550059420954054 |