Barriers to Pediatric Epilepsy Surgery (Pt. 1): The Scandal of Underutilization

"Let's Talk About Epilepsy Surgery" is our new awareness campaign about pediatric epilepsy surgery. In this first webinar in our series, our founder Monika Jones discusses what the research says about why epilepsy surgery is underused in children with drug-resistant seizures with Dr. Luke Tomcyz, director of the pediatric neurosurgery program at Jozeph M. Sanzari Children's Hospital in Hackensack, New Jersey.

Some of the barriers to epilepsy surgery include parental reluctance to consider surgery, lack of proper training of some neurosurgeons, poor understanding by some neurologists of when it's time to refer a child for a surgical evaluation, and systemic barriers like the complicated surgical evaluation process.

#epilepsysurgery #seizures #epilepsy #epilepsyawareness

[nataleehutchins]

This was really eye opening, because we were told from the beginning that our son would need surgery. I am so grateful we live in Utah and were connected to the right people to help us. I was so unsure about surgery and was a reck that day, but my son has a quality and full life. We lived in and out of the hospital with his seizures. He was on 4 medications right before surgery. Our team was just trying to wait until he was 3 months before surgery, but after having non stop seizures for an hour and a half we couldn't wait. Our little one was 7 weeks old and is now 4 years seizure free! He is doing amazing. Growing and developing.