New Treatment Offers Hope for Epilepsy Sufferers
By Darragh Worland | Friday, March 19, 2010 7:15 AM ET
Researchers say they’ve hit on a promising new treatment for people suffering from severe, treatment-resistant epilepsy.
Roughly two-thirds of epilepsy patients respond to medication, but the remaining third who do not are often doomed to live in fear of their next seizure. But the findings of a trial published in the journal Epilepsia Thursday suggest that hope could be on the horizon even for the toughest cases thanks to “deep brain stimulation,” reports ABC News.
The double-blind trial, conducted by a large group of researchers, involved implanting an electrical stimulation device in 110 patients suffering from epilepsy. For the first three months, half had the devices activated. After that period, for the remaining nine months, all patients received mild electrical stimulation. Patients were followed for two years.
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