Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center

Mischer Neuroscience Institute

Texas Comprehensive Epilepsy Program

More than 2.5 million Americans struggle with epilepsy and other seizure disorders. It's a difficult disease to diagnose, and one that's often challenging to manage. In 1990, the Texas Comprehensive Epilepsy Program (TCEP), a joint venture between the University of Texas Medical School at Houston and Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, opened the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit (EMU) to offer exceptional care through a one-stop-shopping approach for pediatric and adult epilepsy patients and their physicians.

Today, more than 350 inpatients a year are seen in the EMU for epilepsy diagnosis and treatment. Our multidisciplinary team of electroneurodiagnostic technologists, epileptologists, neuropsychologists, pediatric and adult neurosurgeons, and neuroradiologists, many University of Texas Medical School at Houston faculty, are at the forefront of their fields.

These key players in ongoing epilepsy research are equipped with state-of-the-art tools, from the acute brain mapping abilities of MEG to the pinpoint surgical accuracy of Gamma Knife.

About our epilepsy program:

• Diagnosis
• Treatment
• Patient Comfort and Care

Diagnosis

For patients who suffer from seizures attributable to brain tumor, stroke, trauma, structural abnormality or similar causes, the TCEP program employs the latest tools to obtain an accurate diagnosis.

Our medical staff physicians use CT, video EEG, PET, SPECT, three-Tesla MRI, and MEG. Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center's MEG is the only one in clinical use in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma. In epilepsy diagnosis, the noninvasive and pain-free MEG offers an important advantage: by displaying a real-time, 3-D image of the brain, it pinpoints the exact locations of abnormal electric brain activity.

Treatment

Once a diagnosis is made and a seizure type determined, the TCEP has at its disposal virtually every treatment option available anywhere in the world. The program's staff has been instrumental in researching every epilepsy treatment approved in the U.S. for more than a decade, including nine drugs, two intravenous therapies and the vagal-nerve stimulator. The TCEP staff has every option available to customize the most appropriate treatment for each patient, including:

• Drug therapy
• Ketogenic diet
• Vagal-nerve stimulator
• Epilepsy surgery

When the option is surgery, Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center's MEG becomes important again. TCEP physicians have the advantage of being able to employ the precision of MEG to help chart critical brain areas. This brain map helps surgeons plot an approach that avoids damage to sensory, motor and speech centers. Program neurosurgeons perform:

• Lobectomy
• Focal cortical resection
• Hemispherectomy
• Corpus callosotomy

Currently, only rare epilepsy conditions lend themselves to Gamma Knife surgery, but when they do, TCEP physicians rely on the most experienced Gamma Knife team in the region. If the patient is a child, TCEP has skilled pediatric neurosurgeons and pediatric anesthesiologists on staff.

Patient Comfort and Care

TCEP boasts a dedicated nursing staff that specializes in epilepsy care. In the hospital, psychologists counsel patients as they deal with the reality of their diagnosis and grapple with what can be a life-altering disease.

For pediatric patients, Child Life specialists are available to address emotional needs along with those of their parents and families. Since TCEP offers both pediatric and adult programs, it has the added advantage of being able to transition young patients into the adult program within familiar surroundings.

For more information or physician referral, call 713-222-CARE (2273).