What is SCORE?
THE CHALLENGE
The electroencephalography (EEG) signal has a high complexity, and the process of extracting clinically relevant features has traditionally been achieved by visual inspection of the recordings and reports designed in free text format.
Free text in medical reporting is challenging as it induces variation in the descriptions and two physicians might describe the exact same finding in different wording and with personal style.
This can create a barrier between the expert, referring physician and patients.
In addition, free text reporting makes information inaccessible for statistical analysis which would be of great interest for research and educational purposes. With these challenges in mind the IFCN (International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology) established a SCORE taskforce with the support of ILAE (International League Against Epilepsy) aiming to standardize EEG reporting.
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"SCORE EEG is a great tool to support a more uniform way of EEG reporting between centers, and even within centers. More uniform reporting will reduce variation in interpretation and will improve good communication about EEG findings in daily patient care"
(Dr. Visser. SEIN Netherlands)
The SCORE consortium is an IFCN official task force and consists of more than 40 experts and key opinion leaders in various fields of EEG, covering Europe, US, Canada and Asia.
The target for the consortium has been to establish a computer based system for EEG reporting and classification, where the physician can construct the report based on predefined terms and elements for each EEG feature as well as clinical phenomena.
The SCORE-group is lead by Dr. Sándor Beniczky, and the accompanying peer-reviewed publication is available online in Epilepsia (Beniczki, Aurlien et al, 2013 Mar 18. doi: 10.1111/epi.12135).
IFCN supports the global SCORE consensus which has been published in Clinical Neurophysiology. IFCN has included SCORE in the revised EEG guidelines as well as their updated glossary.
There is also a whole chapter dedicated to the SCORE terminology and the SCORE EEG software in the 7th edition of Niedermeyer’s Electroencephalography.
See how we at Holberg EEG and the SCORE EEG Premium Edition software have the solution!