Mayo Clinic Scottsdale was the lead center in a recent multicenter trial of the device in older adults showing promising results. When patients do not respond to pharmaceutical therapies, doctors may be able to recommend surgery. The most common type of epilepsy surgery is called a temporal lobectomy, in which a section of the seizure-causing part of the brain is removed. Other surgeries to remove brain lesions, tumors, tangles of blood vessels or scar tissue also can help control seizures, if the cause can be correctly identified. The surgery is safe and effective in a majority of patients.
Many individuals report an improvement in thinking and concentration after successful surgery.
The ketogenic diet was formulated in the 1920's when Mayo Clinic physician R.M Wilder noticed that fasting epilepsy patients had fewer seizures. The high fat, low-protein, no carbohydrate diet mimics some effects of starvation that seem to inhibit seizures. Ketogenic diets have been used for epileptic children for many years with a success rate of approximately 50 percent. Mayo Clinic Scottsdale is currently the only center in the Valley that offers this therapy in adults. The role of hormones in female epilepsy patients is under investigation.