The main treatments for epilepsy are:
- Medical therapy
- Surgical therapy
Medical therapy
Many people with epilepsy can be successfully treated with medication.
Currently, there are more than a dozen medications available. Our epileptologists have the training and experience to prescribe the drug—or combination of drugs—most likely to reduce a patient’s seizures with minimal side effects.
Our epileptologists are experienced in prescribing medication in special circumstances, such as for elderly individuals and for women.
Specific issues for women include:
- pregnancy
- birth control
- menopause
- thinning bones
In addition to conventional therapies, patients may choose to receive alternative medications through the Epilepsy Center’s clinical trials.
Surgical therapy
Seizures that do not respond to medications may be reduced or eliminated through surgery. Surgery should not be considered only as a last resort. Advances in surgical techniques and technologies now offer surgical options to a significantly larger percentage of epileptic patients.
By careful testing before surgery, we identify those areas of the brain to avoid during the operation so that crucial functions, such as talking, are not damaged. After surgery, seizures may be stopped completely or see a significant reduction.
We offer the following surgical treatment procedures:
- Temporal lobe resection
- Extratemporal resection
- Corpus callosal section
- Lesionectomy
- Selective amygdalo-hippocampectomy
- Multiple subpial transection
- Multiple hippocampal transection
- Hemispherectomy