Pediatric Epilepsy Care

Tailored Treatment For Children Who Suffer From Seizures 

Witnessing your child having a seizure is life-changing. And while getting an epilepsy diagnosis can be traumatic for the whole family, it may bring patients one step closer to realizing a seizure-free life. You can feel confident knowing that there are leading pediatric epilepsy experts with access to the latest treatments nearby.

Epilepsy is a neurological disorder that involves recurrent, unprovoked seizures. In children, epilepsy can impact daily life, development, behavior, learning, and overall well-being. At Hackensack Meridian Children's Health, we understand the challenges that families face when dealing with pediatric epilepsy. 

While there is no cure for epilepsy, prolonged seizure-freedom is the goal of treatment. Even if complete seizure-freedom is unattainable, effective management strategies can help minimize seizure frequency and/or intensity, and improve quality of life. A personalized treatment plan may include:

• Diet therapy such as modified Atkins and ketogenic diets (high-fat and low-carbohydrate diets specifically designed to control seizures). Some children on the ketogenic diet become seizure-free.
• Medications prescribed based on the type of seizure, your child’s age, side effects, cost, and ease of use. Your child may need periodic blood and urine tests, as well as an occasional EEG, to see how well the medication is working.
• Neuropsychological testing used to understand and address how epilepsy impacts a child’s thinking and behavior in school and at home. This also helps the team plan for possible surgery.
• Vagus nerve stimulation with a device implanted under the skin of the chest. This generates electrical currents to correct abnormal brain activity. This may be an option for children ages 12 and older who have partial seizures not well controlled with medication.
• Minimally invasive laser procedures using computer planning and robotic guidance to ablate areas of the brain without performing a formal craniotomy.
• Neuromodulatory therapies including deep brain stimulation (DBS) and reactive neurostimulation (RNS) to target eloquent and deep brain regions.
• Surgery to remove or ablate parts of the brain responsible for seizures. Our epilepsy surgeons have extensive experience performing these delicate operations.