The advantage of knowing what causes these spells is that patients may not need to be placed on epilepsy drugs, all of which have some side effects. For patients whose epilepsy is not controllable with medications, further evaluation is necessary to determine whether surgery could be beneficial. A team of subspecialists, including neurologists with special training in epilepsy, radiologists, a neuropsychologist and neurosurgeons, administer more comprehensive diagnostic tests. This allows physicians to closely pinpoint the area of the brain where the seizures take place. If surgery is deemed necessary, it can then be tailored so as little brain tissue as possible is removed.
Patients are awake immediately after surgery and usually up and walking by the next morning.
Most can go home after four or five days. Nearly 85 percent of people, who suffer from the most common form of medically intractable epilepsy, stop having seizures following surgery. We will work closely with the referring physicians in determining a treatment course and then return the patients to their primary doctors for continued care.