癫痫中心

The 圣弗朗西斯医疗保健系统 癫痫中心 is comprised of a board-certified epileptologist, 癫痫病住院监测组, 门诊, 住院病人和门诊病人神经生理学, neuropsychologists and advanced imaging capabilities that all come together to provide advanced seizure and epilepsy care.

什么是癫痫?

Epilepsy is a disease in which a person’s brain has the tendency to have 癫痫发作. A seizure is a surge of abnormal and increased brain electrical activity. 癫痫发作可表现为多种症状，如, 但不限于, staring or shaking of a limb up to full body shaking with complete loss of awareness and disruption of function. 大约百分之一的人患有癫痫.

诊断

The diagnosis of epilepsy is predominantly made by a detailed taking of history. In fact, around 50 percent of patients can have a specific epilepsy diagnosis made just with history. Epilepsy is defined as having had two or more unprovoked 癫痫发作 in a person’s lifetime. A diagnosis of epilepsy can also be made in a person with one unprovoked seizure and at least a 60 percent likelihood of having another seizure based on various testing, which includes electroencephalogram (EEG) and neuroimaging such at computerized tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET).

治疗

Currently there are more than 25 antiseizure medications on the market. The majority of patients (about 65 percent) with epilepsy become seizure free with one-to-three antiseizure medications.  Medical management should include proper drug selection based on side effects, 药物的相互作用和作用机制. 不幸的是, this still leaves approximately one-third of patients who are intractable or drug-resistant, 谁在服用两种抗癫痫药物失败后被发现. 对于这些病人, it is important to make a specific epilepsy diagnosis so the potential of epilepsy surgery can be considered. Epilepsy surgery represents the standard of care for epilepsy patients and provides the ability to make patients seizure free whom otherwise would continue to suffer. Epilepsy surgeries include safe removal of a small portion of brain (called lesionectomies or tailored lobectomies) as well as devices such as vagus nerve stimulators (VNS), deep brain stimulators (DBS) and responsive neurostimulators (RNS). Our 癫痫中心 works closely to tailor specific treatment options for each individual patient.

癫痫护理小组

Our epilepsy care team provides advanced seizure and epilepsy management and is able to readily identify and treat non-epilepsy seizure-like activities including non-epileptic attacks. 团队成员包括:

• 马克·法伦堡，医学博士, leads the team as the area’s only board-certified epileptologist, 哪个是接受过癫痫专科训练的神经科医生. He is a native of southeast Missouri and his priority is to improve epilepsy care in the region. He has extensive experience in both medical and surgical treatments of epilepsy, 包括最复杂的情况.
• Neuroradiologists able to identify subtle lesions that cause epilepsy on multiple imaging modalities.
• Neuropsychologists with experience in treating the psychosocial aspects of epilepsy as well the ability to perform neuropsychological testing to optimize cognitive function as well as epilepsy surgery evaluations.
• Inpatient nurses with special training in seizure management and the care of epilepsy patients.
• EEG technicians trained in both short as well as long-term EEG monitoring.
• Outpatient nurses and medical assistants with extensive experience in management of outpatient epilepsy care.

为什么选择圣弗朗西斯癫痫中心

作为该地区唯一的专业癫痫中心, Saint Francis brings the capabilities and services usually reserved only for larger cities, 包括:

• Epilepsy Monitoring Unit (EMU) – Specialized inpatient unit where patients undergo continuous video EEG monitoring in order to characterize 癫痫发作 or seizure-like activity, quantify subclinical 癫痫发作 or localize 癫痫发作 for epilepsy surgery evaluation.
• ICU连续脑电图监测功能
• 常规和动态脑电图
• 3T癫痫协议MRI
• Neuropsychology services including presurgical evaluations for epilepsy surgery workup as well as treatment for patients with nonepileptic attacks
• Local epilepsy surgery evaluations – If a patient requires surgery, the 癫痫中心 develops a joint surgical plan with outside surgery centers and remains involved throughout the process.

The Saint Francis 癫痫中心 provides superior epilepsy care with the goal of seizure freedom, 不管病人癫痫的复杂程度如何.