Health and Disability

From analyzing 1,106 studies from the PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus databases, the team identified 25 studies that included 253 sudden unexpected death cases among patients with epilepsy, in which sleeping positions at time of death were documented.

The researchers found that in 73.3% of cases, patients died while sleeping on their stomach - known as the "prone" position - while the remaining 26.7% of patients died in other sleeping positions.

The team notes that 11 cases of sudden unexpected death identified in this study were monitored via video and electroencephalography (EEG). In all of these cases, patients died while sleeping in on their stomach.

By assessing a subgroup of 88 patients, the team found that patients under the age of 40 were four times more likely to be found in the prone position at time of sudden unexpected death than patients over the age of 40.