AED Quiz | Episode 15 | Audio Epilepsy Digest

1. What is the safest way to use the Bradford Hill viewpoints in this evidence base? Count how many viewpoints are satisfied and declare causality once most are positive. Use each viewpoint to test a causal hypothesis, while weighing study design, bias, temporality, outcome type, and alternative explanations. Treat specificity as mandatory for any multifactorial neurologic disorder. Use biological plausibility to resolve conflicting clinical data.

Correct answer: B. The episode treats Bradford Hill as disciplined causal reasoning, not a checklist, vote, or proof score.

2. Which statement correctly preserves the episode's three outcome lanes? A reduction in interictal epileptiform discharges establishes that CPAP prevents SUDEP. An association with a revised SUDEP risk inventory is equivalent to observing fewer SUDEP events. Evidence about seizure or interictal-discharge burden, incident or late-onset epilepsy, and SUDEP-risk markers should be interpreted separately. The strongest finding in any one lane can be used to support the other two lanes.

Correct answer: C. The episode repeatedly prevents confidence from being transferred across clinically different outcomes and surrogate markers.

3. How should a narrow confidence interval be discussed in this episode's statistical style? It proves the estimate is unbiased and clinically important. It suggests greater statistical precision, while confounding, selection, and measurement bias may still remain. It means the effect applies to every patient with epilepsy. It removes the need to examine the study design.

Correct answer: B. Confidence-interval width conveys precision, not freedom from bias or proof of causation.

4. What is the narrowest defensible clinical implication from the episode? CPAP reliably reduces seizures and prevents late-onset epilepsy and SUDEP. Every person with epilepsy requires polysomnography. Clinicians should identify and treat confirmed OSA for established sleep-medicine indications while tracking epilepsy outcomes without promising an epilepsy-specific response. OSA should remain a passive comorbidity until a definitive epilepsy-outcome trial is completed.

Correct answer: C. The practical close supports active, indicated OSA care while preserving uncertainty about epilepsy-specific prevention and treatment effects.

Fellow Bootcamp: OSA Is Not Just a Comorbidity

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