article about RNS brain implant

[Nakamova]

The Neuropace RNS brain implant has been approved by the FDA.

You can read the NYTimes article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/25/health/easing-epilepsy-with-battery-power.html?ref=health&_r=0

The article discusses the device, and profiles someone who's had a good experience with it. Here's an excerpt:

The device, which requires a battery change every two to three years, works only for people whose seizures start in one or two places in their brain. Electrical stimulation delivered through thin wires placed precisely at those places helps prevent an incipient seizure from spreading.

By contrast, another treatment, a vagus nerve device — which is a stimulator implanted in the chest to prevent seizures — fires “on a preprogrammed basis with no relationship to what’s happening in the brain,” said Dr. Devinsky of the NYU Langone epilepsy center.

Before the RNS is turned on, a patient’s unique seizure patterns must be detected, a process that takes months and multiple clinic visits. Then comes a period of trial and error, when the intensity of stimulation is increased or decreased, or the number of pulses altered, to see if the patient experiences fewer seizures.

 

[kirsten]

Good news for world epilepsy day! Yay!

 

[epileric]

It is very exciting. I just posted about that yesterday http://www.coping-with-epilepsy.com/forums/f22/neurological-pacemaker-23168/