Life After Epilepsy Surgery
It can be difficult for a person who has had years of
seizures to fully re-adapt to a
seizure-free life if the
epilepsy surgery is successful. The person may never have had an opportunity to develop independence, and he or she may have had school and work difficulties that could have been avoided with earlier treatment. Surgery should always be performed with support from rehabilitation specialists and counselors who can help the person deal with the many psychological, social, and employment issues he or she may face.
Even when epilepsy surgery completely ends a person's seizures, it is important to continue taking seizure medication for some time to give the brain time to re-adapt. Doctors generally recommend
epilepsy medication for two years after a successful operation to avoid new seizures.
Risks Associated With Epilepsy Surgery
While epilepsy surgery can significantly reduce or even halt seizures for some people, it is important to remember that any kind of surgery carries some amount of risk (usually small).
Epilepsy surgery for epilepsy does not always successfully reduce seizures and it can result in cognitive or personality changes, even in people who are excellent candidates for surgery. Patients should ask their surgeon about his or her experience, success rates, and complication rates with the procedure they are considering.
Types of Epilepsy Surgery
Types of epilepsy surgery include:
- Lobectomy or lesionectomy
- Multiple subpial transection
- Corpus callosotomy
- Hemispherectomy and hemispherotomy
- Implanted devices
- Surgery to treat other medical conditions causing seizures (such as a brain tumor).
Lobectomy or Lesionectomy
The most common type of epilepsy surgery is removal of a seizure focus, or small area of the brain where seizures originate. This type of epilepsy surgery, which doctors may refer to as a lobectomy or lesionectomy, is appropriate only for focal seizures that originate in just one area of the brain. In general, people have a better chance of becoming seizure-free after surgery if they have a small, well-defined seizure focus.
Lobectomies have a 55 to 70 percent success rate when the type of epilepsy and the seizure focus is well defined.
The most common type of lobectomy is a temporal lobe resection, which is performed for people with temporal lobe epilepsy. Temporal lobe resection leads to a significant reduction or complete cessation of seizures about 70 to 90 percent of the time.
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