EEG Bloopers

by Andrew Ham

This brand-new EEG book provides a light and fun counterbalance to the typical technically-heavy books on this subject. For those whose careers intersect with EEG, you'll get a kick out of reading actual and authentic annotations typed during EEG recordings [mostly] by EEG technologists and students. With the sole exception of one solitary page (can you find it?! - your phonetic clue is "tenants"), every single comment within every single EEG screenshot located on every single page (excluding the ONE exception) is an authentic screen capture from EEGs with notable-to-me annotations entered by EEG technologists - the vast majority of those were typed while the study was being performed. You don't have to look any further than my own historical EEGs (back when I was performing bedside EEG services) to likely harvest a prolific collection of grammatical errors (typing 'on the fly' is inherently prone to such mistakes), exasperated tones, incorrect pattern identification, frustrated language, technologist-nurse interaction unpleasantness, etc. I say this because although what qualifies many (though not all) of these screenshots for inclusion could be argued as being either (1) imperfections or deviations from idealistic professional prose in one form or another or (2) questionable EEG interpretive insight, the inertia of this book's creation is fueled by a playful, kind-spirited approach. It is much easier to, in hindsight, both critically assess (contemplate the meaning and relevance of) an annotation’s content as well as interpret the EEG-proper. In real-time, the annotator is inherently disadvantaged, by comparison. This is because typing comments during an active recording is far more challenging for a variety of reasons, including multiple persons in the room, no benefit of a “leisurely” EEG review pace, and the other responsibilities of the bedside EEG technologist affecting their available bandwidth and thus their ability to articulate the state of things. In addition, EEG students who are still learning may also annotate; it is of course expected that during this time there will be some well-intentioned missteps. Perhaps a strong analogy is the blooper outtakes of TV shows and movies that many of us so thoroughly enjoy (sometimes more than the actual movie or show) to watch on platforms such as YouTube and DVD extras.

These golden EEG nuggets (as I perceive them) were hand-picked from the plethora of raw EEG data I’ve combed through over several years; many selections were identified while I was pruning EEG clips and excising and purging the "fat". Many others were spotted while reviewing EEGs during transcription of preliminary EEG reports. To protect patient privacy, I have excised the date and time stamps from the annotations. Each of the annotations pages contains an image of the ant, of whom you will soon know; some presentations are more camouflaged than others. I do hope that this collection of authentic annotations brings a smile to your face (and an occasional spontaneous chuckle). As a bonus, at the end of the book is a small curation of rebus puzzles; these are but a sample of an upcoming EEG book which will be full of these word games. These should be fun! Cheers!

73 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 29, 2025