Kootenai Health, of Coeur d'Alene, has purchased a brain-monitoring machine that tracks the brain's electrical activity in critically ill, sometimes comatose patients, warning caregivers of neurological deterioration before it becomes permanent.

The new device is called a continuous electroencephalogram (EEG) machine. It cost $53,000, and Kootenai Medical Center (KMC) began using it in May, says Judy Hayton, manager of the neurodiagnostic department there. Kootenai Health operates KMC.

Research has shown that some patients following surgery, as well as patients who are in a coma or in a medically-induced coma to help speed recovery, can have seizures previously undetected because their bodies aren't convulsing or moving, says Kootenai Health spokeswoman Paula Davenport.

Hayton says up to 38 percent of such patients who aren't being monitored using a continuous EEG machine are thought to go into what doctors call status epilepticus, which is a seizure that lasts for more than five minutes. The continuous seizures, if not stopped, can cause irreversible brain damage, Hayton says.

The continuous EEG's manufacturer is Nihon Kohden, a Japanese company, Hayton says.

Hayton says Kootenai Health purchased the machine expecting KMC to use it about eight times a year, but the Coeur d'Alene hospital has used it on nine patients in its first three weeks of use. Patients usually are monitored by the machine for between one day and two weeks, she says.

KMC has three EEG technicians trained to use the machine, and a fourth currently is being trained, she says.

The system includes cameras that transmit video images of the patients and their continuous EEG readings to monitors at the nurses' stations and allows physicians to monitor a patient from outside the hospital.

The system also can send alarms to doctors via a radio pager when seizure activity is detected, Davenport says.

Hayton says the hospital will use the continuous EEG machine to help monitor cardiac-care patients, open-heart surgery patients, those with severe brain injuries, stroke victims, and those with brain hemorrhages.

Hayton says, "In a lot of cases, an EEG is ordered because the patient has a chance of going into seizure, and the physician or caregiver wants to make sure the brain isn't compromised when the patient needs to be paralyzed, because once they are paralyzed you cannot see seizure activity."