Convulsive Events Implicated in Sudden Unexplained Death in Toddlers

FRIDAY, Jan. 5, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Video recordings implicate convulsive events in sudden unexplained death in toddlers, according to a study published online Jan. 4 in Neurology.

Laura Gould, from the NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York City, and colleagues examined potential mechanisms of death by assessing videos of sudden death in toddlers. Seven consecutively enrolled cases of sudden unexplained child deaths with home video recordings of the child's last sleep period were independently assessed by eight physicians. The seven cases with terminal videos shared similar demographic features with 293 other cases that did not have video recordings.

The researchers found that all five of the continuous recordings included a terminal convulsive event lasting eight to 50 seconds; four of the children survived for more than 2.5 minutes after the convulsion. Of the two discontinuous videos that were triggered by sound or motion, time lapses limited review, but one suggested a convulsive event. Six of the children were prone with face-down; autopsy evidence of airway obstruction was seen in one case. There was no evidence to support primary cardiac arrhythmias; normal cardiac pathology was seen in all seven children, and no known cardiac disease variants were identified on whole exome sequencing.

"These study findings show that seizures are much more common than patients' medical histories suggest, and that further research is needed to determine if seizures are frequent occurrences in sleep-related deaths in toddlers, and potentially in infants, older children, and adults," senior author Orrin Devinsky, M.D., also from the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, said in a statement.

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