Intraoperative EEG monitoring

Intraoperative electroencephalographic (EEG) monitoring has become technically feasible in everyday clinical practice. Anesthesiologists should become familiar with the utility and indications for intraoperative EEG monitoring. An understanding of the EEG and the various descriptors of the EEG, including spectral edge frequency, density spectral array, and other parameters, is readily obtained. Clinicians can adapt these EEG parameters to their decision making process to guide therapeutic interventions or follow the course of pharmacologic manipulations. This article presents a discussion of the clinical application of routine intraoperative EEG monitoring with clinical examples and comparison of two commercially available monitors.