Evaluation & Treatment Options for Children with Refractory Epilepsy
Learning Objectives:
Define intractable epilepsy, and understand incidence, causes, and impact in children
Discuss goals of evaluation and means of testing; understand the role of Comprehensive Epilepsy centers
Review non-medication and surgical treatments for intractable epilepsy, including ketogenic diet, neurostimulators (VNS, RNS), invasive EEG, laser ablation, corpus callosotomy, resection/lobectomy, and hemispherotomy
About the Presenter
Gretchen Von Allmen, M.D. has been Director of the Pediatric Epilepsy Program
and Medical Director of the Pediatric Epilepsy Monitoring Unit at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston for more than 12 years. Dr. Von Allmen earned her medical degree at Emory University School of Medicine, and completed residencies at Emory and Northwestern University, as well as fellowships at the University of Chicago and Baylor College of Medicine. She has expertise evaluating children undergoing non-invasive and invasive procedures for epilepsy surgery, namely in the utilization and interpretation of Stereo-EEG and Magnetoencephalography.
