Periodic electroencephalographic (EEG) patterns consist of discharges usually epileptiform in appearance, which occur at regular intervals, in critical patients. They are commonly classified as periodic lateralized epileptiform discharges (PLEDs), bilateral independent PLEDs or BIPLEDs, generalized epileptiform discharges (GPEDs) and triphasic waves. Stimulus-induced rhythmic, periodic or ictal discharges (SIRPIDs) are peculiar EEG patterns, which may be present as periodic discharges. The aim of this study is to make a review of the periodic EEG patterns, emphasizing the importance of their recognition and clinical significance. The clinical significance of the periodic EEG patterns is uncertain, it is related to a variety of etiologies, and many authors suggest that these patterns are unequivocally epileptogenic in some cases. Their recognition and classification are important to establish an accurate correlation between clinical, neurological, laboratorial and neuroimaging data with the EEG results.

OBJECTIVES: To make a retrospective analysis and evaluate a clinical response to the control of disc degeneration related pain of 396 patients submitted to percutaneous lumbar nucleoplasty; and to make a record of visual analogical scale (VAS) up to a three-year follow-up after the surgical procedure. METHODS: Analysis of VAS score in 396 patients with lumbar disc degeneration related pain, according to anamnesis, clinical examination and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), without improvement of previous clinical treatment, submitted to percutaneous nucleoplasty. RESULTS: A total of 26% of the patients presented 100% remission of pain or paresthesia, of whom 75% showed at least 50% of pain improvement. The median VAS pain improvement was about 67%. CONCLUSIONS: The median VAS improvement in inferior disc levels was higher than four points. The VAS showed improvement of the pain and paresthesia up to a three-year follow up after the surgical procedure.

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Introduction. The purpose of this study was to survey the prevalence of epilepsy in the urban population of São José do Rio Preto, a medium-sized city, 360,000 inhabitants, at northwest of São Paulo state, Brazil.Method: This population cross-sectional epidemiological study was carried out into two stages. The first was to access validation of the screening questionnaire on a neighborhood of the city; the second was the study of the prevalence in a randomly, stratified large-scale survey on the population of the city. A gold standard protocol, clinical history and neurological examination, was used to diagnose all the positive cases. The false negative cases were obtained after the validation of results by a mathematical model. For assessing prevalence Chi-square test and Confidence Interval (CI 95%) were used to analyze the results (p-value ≤ 0.05).Results: The Validation of the screening questionnaire showed a sensitivity of 95.83% and a specificity of 97.8%. There were 17,293 individuals in the studied sample; the distribution according to sex, age group and race was similar to the general population. Lifetime crude prevalence of epilepsy was 18.6/1000 inh. (CI 95%;16.6-20.6); 8.2(CI 95%;6.8-9.5) for active and