Sleep and epilepsy in children: clinical aspects and polysomnography.

Studies assessing the relationship between sleep and epilepsy in pediatric patients are scarce, however, during childhood, the incidence either of epilepsy and sleep disorders is elevated and this population is thought to have the greatest occurrence of the association between these two co-morbidities. In this article we review results from clinical research developed in our sleep laboratory as effects of refractory partial epilepsy in sleep organization, sleep habits in children with epilepsy, the relationship of apparent life threatening events and epilepsy, heart rate control during sleep and seizures and risk of sudden death, and discuss our findings in the context of the literature available. Copyright 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.