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At Stanford Health Care, our epilepsy specialists tailor your treatments based on the type of epilepsy and seizures you’re experiencing. We usually start your treatment with anti-seizure medications, which may be all you need.
If medicine doesn't reduce your seizures, we may suggest nonsurgical therapies, an implantable device, or surgery as the next steps in your care.
- Internationally recognized epilepsy specialists with expertise in the latest tests and treatments, providing hope for people who may not have responded to earlier treatment.
- Diagnosis and treatment of nonepileptic seizures. Not everyone with a diagnosis of epilepsy actually has epilepsy. Stanford Medicine has extensive experience and special expertise in distinguishing epilepsy from its imitators and then provides treatment directed at the true underlying problem.
- Epilepsy monitoring unit (EMU) with a highly trained team who conducts in-depth evaluation and 24/7 monitoring to diagnose and treat epilepsy and seizures.
- Expertise in the latest technology for pinpointing the precise areas of the brain where seizures begin, to help plan personalized treatment.
- The latest treatments including neuromodulation therapy, which uses implantable devices that deliver electric pulses to reduce or prevent seizures before they start.
- Groundbreaking research in collaboration with the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute to advance new therapies such as medications, nondrug approaches, and electrical brain stimulation.
Connect to Care
Let us help find personalized care options for you and your family.
Comprehensive Epilepsy Program
Our program is among the top in the nation, known for helping people whose epilepsy has not responded to prior treatment.
Interested in an Online Second Opinion?
The Stanford Medicine Online Second Opinion program offers you easy access to our world-class doctors. It’s all done remotely, and you don’t have to visit our hospital or one of our clinics for this service. You don’t even need to leave home!
Visit our online second opinion page to learn more.
Types of Epilepsy Treatment
Medication can help control seizures and reduce their frequency. With more than 25 types available, each medication works in a different way to relieve your symptoms.
We carefully evaluate you to understand the seizures you’re experiencing so that we can prescribe the right medications. You may need to try more than one medication to find the right type or combination that works best.
Nonsurgical treatments may be right for you, depending on the type of seizures and symptoms you have. Not everyone with drug-resistant epilepsy is a candidate for surgery. Options, some of which are still in the experimental stage, include:
- Ketogenic (keto) diet: This high-fat eating plan, used mainly for children with epilepsy, strictly limits carbohydrates and proteins. A keto diet may help prevent excitability of the brain and promote a calming effect to reduce and control seizures.
- Psychological counseling: Our neuropsychologists work closely with you to help you manage your emotions and thoughts. Counseling therapies such as cognitive behavioral therapy and behavior modification therapy can be especially helpful for people with nonepileptic seizures (NES) or epileptic seizures provoked by stress or physical conditions.
Epilepsy surgery may be right for you if you have tried two or more medications that haven’t relieved your symptoms. Surgery is a safe, effective treatment that can improve your quality of life.
Epilepsy surgery is most effective for seizures that begin in one area of the brain. Most surgical procedures target and treat the exact part of the brain that causes seizures. Types of epilepsy surgery include:
- Laser interstitial thermal therapy (LITT): This minimally invasive procedure targets the area of the brain where seizures start with a device called a probe. The probe emits heat to destroy the cells causing the seizures.
- Keyhole surgery: This surgery involves making a very small opening in the bone through which surgeons remove the cells that cause seizures.
- Focal resection: Neurosurgeons remove the seizure focus, such as a part or all of a section in the brain. Focal resection can help people who have seizures localized in an area of the brain that can be safely removed.
- Corpus callosotomy: A bundle of nerve fibers called the corpus callosum connects the two hemispheres (halves) of the brain. It helps the hemispheres share information, but it also allows for a seizure to spread. This procedure severs the corpus callosum to prevent seizures from spreading between hemispheres.
- Temporal lobectomy: Neurosurgeons remove part of the temporal lobe, an area of the brain near the ears and temples. Temporal lobectomy is the most common epilepsy surgery procedure.
Neuromodulation, or neurostimulation, devices are an option for people with drug-resistant epilepsy who are not candidates for epilepsy surgery. Surgeons implant the device in the brain to treat epilepsy.
Wires from the devices send mild, painless electrical pulses to the brain to stop seizures or reduce their frequency. Each neuromodulation approach works in different ways:
- Deep brain stimulation therapy (DBS): DBS delivers electrical pulses at specific levels and intervals. DBS can help people who have focal seizures in one or more areas of the brain. It is not necessary to know exactly where the seizures originate.
- Responsive neurostimulation (RNS): RNS can help stop seizures before they begin by detecting and interrupting abnormal electrical activity in your brain. RNS is an option for people with focal seizures in only one or two well-identified areas of the brain.
- Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS): Like DBS, VNS delivers electrical pulses at specific levels and intervals to treat seizures. The device sends pulses from the upper chest through the vagus nerve in the neck.
Clinical Trials
Clinical trials are research studies that evaluate a new medical approach, device, drug, or other treatment. As a Stanford Health Care patient, you may have access to the latest, advanced clinical trials.
Open trials refer to studies currently accepting participants. Closed trials are not currently enrolling but may open in the future.