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Monitoring an infant/todder in sleep for seziures--whats the best way?

Mon, 05/11/2015 - 11:42

My 22 month old daughter has always, always had her seizures in the evening, before bed time. As far as we know, she has never had one in her sleep, until this past week. It has always been a fear of ours, but because she only has an episode about once ever 3 weeks or so, it was not something we had a fool proof plan, to handle. We check on her often through the night. I go in her room and check on her before I go to bed, when I get up, and usually at least twice or more through out the night. We have a video baby monitor with audio. It doesnt have the best video capabilities, especially in the dark. I have heard of the watches you can get, however she has complext partial seizures. Since she doesn't alway jerk a lot, or sometimes not at all that is not a feasible option for her. For now, we have moved her crib into our room, and parked it right next to our bed. I would like, if possible to be able to return her to her own bedroom, though. I did find this SamI camera, and was thinking of trying it. It has infrared technology and detects movement, and from what I can tell it does not need to be rapid movement. During her bad seizures, about 5 mins in she will start jerking her left arm and/or leg. So I feel it would pick that up and alert us. However, her seizures start our for about 5 mins when she is not moving. She is in a frozen state, her eyes veer to one direction, she get discolored, drolls, and loses the ability to stand or sit up. It's really those first 5 minutes that if we can detect it, we have a better chance of getting her to stop the seizure once we administer her diastat. We have had trouble past those first 5 mins, in getting her to come out of the seizure with out having to call 911 or take her to the ems. Anyone experience something similiar, how did you deal with it? I mean if I have to sleep with her, or right next to her for as long as I have to, I will. I was just wondering if there was any technology out there that could alert us, or other ways parents have used to handle sleep time.

Comments

Following.I have been

Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 2015-05-16 - 13:26
Following.I have been wondering the same thing about our son. The SAMi is the best thing I have came across so far.  A medical grade apnea monitor worked well for us for a while until he started becoming curious about the wires. But that would only monitor breathing and heart rate. The monitor did alert us before there were visible signs of a seizure. So we were able to get him out of his bed or bouncer and try to start stimulating him. It was a life saver for me because we have a toddler too. I didn't want to be occupied doing something else while he was laying there having a seizure and not breathing. I am even thinking of asking the doctor for another order to get one again.  I thought about exclusively using it at night because he sleeps in his crib right next to me and I hear any time he even stirs so we can watch him closely. I was also intrigued by the idea of a seizure alert dog. But I have not had time to do any research about it. And I don't know if they work with children that young either. If you do decide on the SAMi, please keep us updated!

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