Epilepsy Care for Children

If your child lives with uncontrolled seizures, also known as medically refractory (hard-to-control) epilepsy, you can find expert pediatric epilepsy care at Oklahoma Children’s Hospital OU Health in Oklahoma City.

Top-Level Epilepsy Care for Children

Take advantage of Oklahoma’s only level 4 (highest) comprehensive epilepsy program for children, where you work with a multidisciplinary team of highly skilled specialists who focus on evaluating your child’s specific condition. Together, you and your child’s care team will develop an individualized treatment plan designed to reduce seizures and improve quality of life.

Caring for Complex Epilepsy Conditions

When you choose Oklahoma Children’s Hospital OU Health pediatric epilepsy program to help care for your child, you gain access to a diverse team of experts who diagnose, treat and help manage a wide range of complex epilepsy conditions such as:

• Absence seizures

• Atonic seizures

• Generalized epilepsy syndromes

• Genetic epilepsy syndromes

• Lennox-Gastaut syndrome

• Low-grade tumors

• Malformations – Focal cortical dysplasia, heterotopias, schizencephaly

• Mesial temporal sclerosis

• Myoclonic seizures

• Neurocutaneous syndromes – Tuberous sclerosis, Sturge-Weber syndrome

• Stroke, hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy, hemimegalencephaly

• Structural brain malformations or perinatal insults

• Tonic seizures

• Tonic-clonic seizures

Explore epilepsy and seizures in children.

Comprehensive Epilepsy Evaluation & Diagnosis

Through a referral to the pediatric epilepsy program at Oklahoma Children’s Hospital OU Health, your child participates in an initial evaluation with an expert epileptologist, who may recommend one or more diagnostic tests or studies, such as:

• Five-day video electroencephalogram

• 3-Tesla (3T) epilepsy-protocol magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)

• Ictal single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT)

• Interictal positron emission tomography (PET)

• Neuropsychological testing

To help determine any possibility of surgery, your care team may ask for more information (Phase I data) that can assist in locating the site of seizures. With all information in hand, a special multidisciplinary team meets (monthly) to review Phase I data and identify next steps for your child’s care. After the multidisciplinary conference, you’ll meet with your child’s epileptologist and neurosurgeon to discuss the surgery plan.

Treatment with Modern Epilepsy Surgery & Therapies

If your care team recommends a surgical procedure for your child’s epilepsy condition, you can rest assured that your OU Health pediatric neurosurgical team provides a complete, modern approach to epilepsy surgery, including diagnostic and therapeutic options such as:

• Phase II monitoring – Subdural grids and strips; stereoelectroencephalography (sEEG)

• Resection – Lesionectomy; lobectomy (anterior temporal, frontal, others); quadrantectomy

• Disconnective procedures – Hemispherectomy (functional hemispherotomy); corpus callostomy

• Neuromodulation – Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS); responsive neurostimulation (RNS); deep brain stimulation (DBS)

• Ablation – Laser interstitial thermal therapy (LITT)

Learn more about OU Health surgery services for children and how you can help prepare your child for surgery.

Your Expert Pediatric Epilepsy Care Team

Your OU Health expert pediatric epilepsy care team involves medical specialists from many healthcare disciplines who work together to help you and your child. Among the highly trained and extensively experienced members of your multidisciplinary team, you may find electrophysiologists, epileptologists, neurosurgeons, neuroradiologists, neuropsychologists and others.

You and your child benefit from the long-term support of your OU Health pediatric epilepsy team designed to ensure continued seizure freedom and optimal quality of life for your child’s specific condition.