Your Neuroscience Center Visit

We use EEGs to find problems related to the brain’s electrical activity. An EEG study records brain wave patterns and helps us diagnose what type of epilepsy your child has.

An EEG isn’t painful. But it can be stressful for kids. It’s better if kids sleep during parts of the recording. You may get instructions to sleep-deprive your child the night before the study, to make them extra sleepy during the EEG.

The test usually takes about an hour.

Here’s What Happens

• Your child will lie on a bed or sit in a chair.
• An EEG technologist will use a tape measure to measure your child’s head. This helps us know where to place the electrodes, which measure the brain’s electrical signals. We use a paste to attach the electrodes and it doesn’t hurt.
• During the test, the technologist will talk your child through some tasks, like blowing on a pinwheel. This helps us get more information. We’ll know your child’s medical history and will make sure they stay safe.

Learn more about EEGs from Nemours KidsHealth.

Some kids will need to spend one or more nights in our Epilepsy Monitoring Unit (EMU). This is so that we can get a continuous EEG reading. This means it records activity the entire time, until we turn it off.

An EMU stay helps us better diagnose some types of epilepsy and gives us important information to help guide your child’s epilepsy care.

Here’s What Happens:

• After you get settled in, an EEG technologist will attach electrodes to different locations on the scalp using a paste. These electrodes measure the brain’s electrical signals.
• You’ll be in the room with your child the entire hospital stay. We do everything we can to make you and your child comfortable. A Child Life specialist will stop by to offer different age-appropriate activities for your child.
• We’ll send you back home once we have enough information from the study, usually during late morning on day of discharge.

An EMG is a way to measure how muscles and nerves respond to electrical activity. We use an EMG to help diagnose conditions that cause muscle weakness, like muscular dystrophy and other muscle and/or nerve problems.

The EMG can be uncomfortable, but different children respond differently. For some kids, it may be better to sleep during the test. 

Here's What Happens

• Your child will lie on a table, and a doctor will attach small stickers (electrodes) to their arms and legs.
• First, the doctor will send a small electrical impulse through the stickers. This usually feels like a buzz.
• Next, the doctor will put a small needle electrode into the muscle to measure electrical activity. This can feel like a small injection.

Learn more about EMG from Nemours KidsHealth.

A CT scan is a type of imaging test that gives doctors more detailed images than an X-ray. For a head CT scan, we use a special X-ray machine to take pictures of the brain, skull, and sinuses, as well as blood vessels in the head.

The test is painless and nothing touches your child’s body.

Here’s What Happens

• Your child will lie on a table, usually with a pillow or soft brace to help hold their head and neck in place.
• A donut-shaped machine circles the head, taking pictures from different angles.
• The test can take 30 minutes or more. If you think your child needs sedation to stay still, please let us know before your appointment. Sedation requires special fasting instructions and recovery time.

Learn More From Nemours KidsHealth

CT Scan: Head

Getting a CT Scan

Here's What Happens

• Your child will lay on a sliding table that moves into the tunnel.
• Sometimes sedation is needed to keep kids still.
• A contrast solution might be needed for better visibility.
• The machine makes repetitive, loud noises during scanning.
• The test could take 30 minutes to an hour.
• Results are interpreted by a radiologist and discussed with the doctor.

A PET scan may be used in the evaluation of drug-resistant epilepsies or tumors in the brain to help guide further treatment options. If we’re considering epilepsy surgery for your child, this is one of the tests we may order. This test may be performed with or without sedation.

Here’s What Happens

• Children with epilepsy have an EEG before the PET scan.
• For the PET scan, we inject a small amount of a radioactive element (called a tracer), through an IV. Your child will rest quietly for about 45 minutes while the tracer settles. They shouldn't feel any effects from the tracer.
• During the scan, you child will lie flat on a table that moves in and out of a donut-shaped CT machine. Your child’s head will rest comfortably inside of a plastic coil.
• If your child was sedated for the scan, the sedation usually wears off within 1-2 hours.

A sleep study helps doctors diagnose sleep problems. This is an overnight test that records different body functions while your child sleeps. During a sleep study, your child will stay overnight in a private, kid-friendly room. You’ll be able to stay with them in the room.

Here’s What Happens

• Try to have your child get a normal night’s sleep the night before the study (but don’t nap the day of).
• Once here, the sleep technician will put sensors on your child in different areas, like the head, chin, legs, and around the eyes. We’ll also put an elastic belt around your child’s chest to measure breathing.
• We also record sounds and may use a camera to record their sleep as well.
• In the morning, we’ll remove all the sensors. It will be over in time for your child to go to school.

Learn More About Sleep Studies

Sleep Study From Nemours KidsHealth

Sleep Medicine at Nemours Children's