Abstract
The utilization of electroencephalography (EEG) has profoundly enriched our comprehension and monitoring of patients, especially those in intensive care units (ICUs), over the past decades. EEG, a method of recording electrical brain signals, is employed to explore a variety of neurological disorders such as epilepsy, dementia, and brain injuries that may affect unconscious patients. In recent years, EEG has also been used to monitor sedation levels, examine the quality of patients’ sleep, and track patient recovery during periods of coma. Groundbreaking findings, derived from EEG recordings in intensive care using various techniques and methodologies, have unveiled new avenues to aid these patients and improve physicians’ understanding of their condition and needs. Innovations such as the examination of sleep quality, the assessment of pain and stress, and the classification of vigilance states represent some of the promising advancements in ICUs, all of which are based on EEG. Recent discoveries stemming from EEG signal analysis have indicated numerous potential enhancements in improving comfort, fostering a better understanding of the situation, and reducing the administration of drugs for ICU patients. In this chapter, we will discuss some new EEG findings for intensive care unit patients and the possible applications that could be revealed based on other investigations on human subjects outside the ICU.