Cedars-Sinai and Huntington Well being collaborate to carry epilepsy care nearer to sufferers

Cedars-Sinai and its affiliate Huntington Well being are collaborating on a brand new Epilepsy Monitoring Unit to carry therapy and care nearer to epilepsy sufferers within the San Gabriel Valley.

Epilepsy causes intense bursts {of electrical} exercise within the mind, leading to seizures that may have an effect on muscle management, speech, imaginative and prescient and consciousness. Seizures could be managed with remedy within the majority of instances. Nevertheless, remedy alone would not management signs for about one-third of the three million U.S. adults with epilepsy.

The brand new Epilepsy Monitoring Unit at Huntington Hospital permits sufferers with uncontrolled epilepsy to be evaluated regionally, referred to Cedars-Sinai for superior therapy as wanted, after which to proceed their care with their Huntington Well being neurologist.

Sufferers with drug-resistant epilepsy should not delay being evaluated for additional therapy, mentioned Avriel Linane, DO, medical director of the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit at Huntington Hospital.

Uncontrolled seizures improve a affected person’s threat for sudden sudden demise in epilepsy, and for damage throughout seizures. They have an effect on sufferers’ lives, whether or not they can work, whether or not they can drive, and their skill to care for his or her kids. Our objective is to assist them get their lives again.”

Avriel Linane, DO, Medical Director, Epilepsy Monitoring Unit, Huntington Hospital

Opened final August, the unit at Huntington consists of transformed affected person rooms geared up with cameras and bedside electroencephalogram (EEG) monitoring to measure mind wave exercise.

Sufferers who come to the unit have 21 EEG electrodes-;every correlating with a distinct a part of the brain-;positioned noninvasively on the scalp. Employees neurologists taper off or discontinue a affected person’s seizure medicines, then repeatedly monitor sufferers over a number of days to report seizure exercise. This monitoring is step one in figuring out the place within the mind the seizures originate.

Linane and neurologists Yafa Minazad, DO, and Adena Shahinian, DO, personally monitor sufferers throughout their keep, monitoring seizure exercise, adjusting medicines as wanted and deciding when ample knowledge has been collected so the affected person can go house.

Sufferers additionally would possibly bear MRI, PET and different imaging research, and neurocognitive, reminiscence and language testing. When testing and monitoring are full, every affected person’s data is mentioned at a gathering between Huntington and Cedars-Sinai epilepsy physicians and nurses.

“We go over the affected person’s historical past and imaging and watch the EEG and video collectively so that everybody turns into conversant in the affected person,” mentioned Linane. “Then we resolve as a bunch of neurosurgeons and epileptologists what the most effective subsequent steps is perhaps.”

Sufferers who want extra in depth therapy can bear surgical procedures at Cedars-Sinai to position electrodes into or on the floor of the mind, adopted by in-hospital monitoring to extra carefully pinpoint the origin of the affected person’s seizures. In some sufferers, a surgical process to take away the irregular portion of mind recognized by these evaluations may eradicate their seizures.

Different sufferers could also be candidates to obtain a neuromodulation gadget, reminiscent of a vagus nerve stimulator, responsive neurostimulator, or a deep mind stimulator. These gadgets, implanted at Cedars-Sinai, ship electrical indicators into the mind to cut back the frequency of seizures.

“The objective of this collaboration is that sufferers have their preliminary analysis at Huntington Hospital, then are referred to Cedars-Sinai for sure varieties of specialised testing and surgical procedures,” mentioned Lisa Bateman, MD, director of the Cedars-Sinai Surgical Epilepsy Program. “After post-procedure evaluations, they’ll return to their suppliers at Huntington and proceed to obtain their epilepsy care there.”

This implies much less journey time with out compromising affected person care.

“It is a terrific mannequin that has labored effectively for us in different applications,” Bateman mentioned. “Folks keep near house, they obtain glorious care, and so they prefer it.”