Wolfson’s Pediatric Epilepsy Center offers a range of advanced treatment options, including:

• Antiepileptic medication: Children, like adults, respond to medications in different ways. Our team utilizes and monitors the appropriate antiepileptic medications to control your child’s seizures without significant side effects. Several drugs or different combinations of drugs may have to be used in an effort to gain control of the seizures. The goal of treatment is to gain the greatest level of control and the lowest level of side effects, at the lowest possible dose.
• Diet therapies: A ketogenic diet or modified ketogenic diet may be used to help treat your child’s epilepsy. The diet requires a team effort — the family, the physician, the dietitian, the nurse education team, and, if the child is old enough, the child himself — all working together to make sure the diet is followed and any side effects are monitored.
• Surgery: Under the guidance of pediatric epileptologist Raj Sheth, MD, pediatric neurosurgeon Philipp Aldana, MD, may need to remove the regions of the brain responsible for your child’s seizures while protecting functionally important tissue. Surgery for pediatric epilepsy is based on each patient’s unique needs and goals. Our specialized team evaluates each patient being considered for surgery. When seizures are frequent or severe enough to significantly interfere with a child’s ability to function at full capacity, surgery may be an option. In addition, surgery may be considered if anti-seizure medications have not been effective at controlling a child’s seizures. Patients of any age, including infants, may be considered for surgery.

Wolfson’s team of neurologists, neurosurgeons, nurse specialists and neuropsychologists evaluate each patient being considered for epilepsy surgery, which is a complicated process involving many different surgical options.

The types of epilepsy surgeries performed at Wolfson Children’s Hospital include:

• Focal resection: This surgery involves removing the portion of the brain where brain seizures originate. The most common site is in the temporal lobe, which is the part of the brain that processes emotions, fight-or-flight reactions and short-term memory. Focal resection is effective only if the seizures consistently originate from one location in the brain.
• Vagus nerve stimulation: In this procedure, a small pacemaker-like device is surgically implanted below the skin on the upper chest. The device delivers a small, steady electrical current to the vagus nerve, the large nerve in the neck that leads directly into the brain.
• Corpus callosotomy: This surgery interrupts the pathway by which seizures spread, and does not remove the parts of the brain where seizures actually originate. Consequently, the seizures are more likely to remain confined to a smaller part of the brain. In preparation for surgery, anticonvulsant medicines may need to be adjusted.
• Hemispherectomy: This surgical procedure removes the areas of the brain causing seizure activity. During this procedure, nearly half of the brain’s hemisphere is removed. Hemispherectomy is suitable for only a limited number of patients.