With an eight-bed epilepsy monitoring unit and an expanded team of experts, Spectrum Health is aiming to provide relief to the many patients with epilepsy whose seizures are not controlled by medication.
The newly renovated unit at Spectrums Butterworth Hospital provides a place for doctors to monitor patients, analyze where in the brain their seizures originate, and determine if they could be helped with surgery.
In the monitoring unit, the epileptologists videotape patients with two cameras and track their brainwaves with EEG (electroencephalogram). And because the goal is to see what happens when they have a seizure, the patient is taken off medication and deprived of sleep or exposed to triggers that could control a seizure.
If dancing or walking sets off a seizure, the staff might encourage that while preparing for a collapse with mats or a harness that hangs from the ceiling.
Some of the patients who come here have very unique stories, said Dr. Brien Smith, an eplileptologist and director of the program. Sometimes seizures can be set off by very different stimuli. You really have to design the environment to capture an episode.
In some cases, electrodes are implanted in the patients brain to locate the focus of the seizures.
About 2.2 million Americans suffer from epilepsy, a disorder that involves seizures triggered when nerve cells in the brain send abnormal signals, according to the Institute of Medicine.
About a third of the patients are unable to control their seizures with medication. For those who cant, surgery can help in many cases, but Smith said too many patients struggle for years with uncontrolled seizures before they are referred for surgery.
Unfortunately, its one of the most underutilized surgeries in the U.S, he said.
Both Spectrum and Saint Marys Health Care have epilepsy treatment programs that are designated as Level 4 and encompass monitoring units and surgery as a treatment option.
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Spectrum boosts treatment for epilepsy with expanded monitoring unit