{"id":2787,"date":"2013-03-29T09:00:18","date_gmt":"2013-03-28T22:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/inthenews\/?p=2787"},"modified":"2015-04-29T13:40:42","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T03:40:42","slug":"a-pioneering-implant-for-maeve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/a-pioneering-implant-for-maeve\/","title":{"rendered":"A pioneering implant for Maeve"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Maeve and her mum Penny exploring the gardens near the RCH. Photo courtesy of the Herald Sun.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Maeve Gleeson’s intractable\u00a0epilepsy was so severe it was causing her to have clusters of up to 90 seizures per day.<\/p>\n

At the worst point, her high doses of medication weren’t working and surgery to remove the part of the brain causing seizures wasn’t an option for Maeve. It was then that the four-year-old became the youngest person in Australia to undergo\u00a0Vagal Nerve Stimulation. The device sends electrical ‘shocks’ to the vagus nerve, the longest cranial nerve which runs down the neck connecting the brain to most of the organs.<\/p>\n

Director of\u00a0Neurology Associate Professor\u00a0Andrew Kornberg says Maeve is much more awake and much more responsive. \u201cThis was her last resort and it seems to be working well.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Associate Prof Kornberg says the device\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0work for everyone and the RCH clinic’s targeted selection of three to five surgeries a year is providing better results.<\/p>\n

Maeve’s mum Penny says her daughter can now\u00a0make the most out of the different\u00a0therapies available.\u00a0\u201cI only let myself take it one day at\u00a0a time. If she was able to say a word,\u00a0I\u2019d be pretty happy. If Maeve was able\u00a0to communicate through a device I\u2019d
\nbe really happy.”<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> for a gallery of photos from The Royal Children\u2019s Hospital Good Friday Appeal on the Herald Sun website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Four-year-old Maeve Gleeson’s intractable epilepsy was so severe it was causing her to have clusters of up to 90 seizures per day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7198,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-good-friday-appeal","category-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2787"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4909,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2787\/revisions\/4909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}