{"id":4193,"date":"2014-04-16T04:35:45","date_gmt":"2014-04-15T18:35:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/?p=4193"},"modified":"2015-04-29T11:51:08","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T01:51:08","slug":"celebrating-500-epilepsy-surgery-patients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/celebrating-500-epilepsy-surgery-patients\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating 500 epilepsy surgery patients"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
RCH neurosurgeon Wirginia Maixner and neurologist Simon Harvey with patient Oliver and family.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As The Royal Children\u2019s Hospital (RCH) celebrates performing epilepsy surgery on its 500th <\/sup>patient, its experts urge parents of children with uncontrollable epilepsy to discuss brain surgery with their child\u2019s paediatrician.<\/p>\n

RCH neurologist and epilepsy program coordinator, Dr Simon Harvey, says children with severe, uncontrolled epilepsy have a poor quality of life and the possibility of developing intellectual impairment or autism, but surgery can reduce the number, severity and impact of seizures, with more than half of those children who undergo epilepsy surgery becoming seizure-free.<\/p>\n

\"Oliver<\/a>
Oliver Terrell used to suffer uncontrollable seizures. Photo courtesy of the Herald Sun.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cParents often have an unfounded fear of surgery and see it as a last resort, but they are not always aware of how devastating seizures can be until it\u2019s too late. If we can operate on appropriate children early enough, we can often make a big difference to where their lives are heading,\u201d Dr Harvey says.<\/p>\n

Six-year-old Elijah Smith was having 80 seizures a day when her parents Lewanna and Robert agreed to her undergoing surgery in September last year.<\/p>\n

Before the 8.5 hour surgery, Elijah had only been able to cope with school for 45 minutes each day; now she is completely seizure and medication-free, and able to attend school full-time.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe would seizure night and day and be constantly exhausted. We needed to be there every time she fitted to provide her with emotional and physical support.\u00a0 Robert and I would alternate nights to be there with her,\u201d Lewanna says.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe couldn\u2019t live her life the way she was. Then (surgeon) Wirginia Maixner and her team worked their magic and she\u2019s now leading a normal life, completely free of seizures. You wouldn\u2019t know she\u2019s been to hell and back.\u201d<\/p>\n

One in 20 children will have a seizure at some time in their life, and 10 per cent of these children will go on to have epilepsy with repeated seizures. More common and milder forms of epilepsy are usually genetic in origin and children are likely to outgrow it.<\/p>\n

Only about a fifth of children with epilepsy will have uncontrolled seizures as a result of a brain injury, tumour or malformation, and it is a proportion of these children who may be helped by surgery, Dr Harvey says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of the most rewarding things you can do as a child neurologist, stopping uncontrolled seizures and improving a child\u2019s quality of life and development,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The RCH performs about 45 epilepsy operations each year, with five-year-old Oliver Terrell becoming its 500th<\/sup> epilepsy surgery patient last week. Oliver and his parents Kimberley and Mark were just one of the families who attended the 500th<\/sup> epilepsy surgery patient celebrations at the hospital this morning.<\/p>\n

To donate to The Royal Children\u2019s Hospital Good Friday Appeal, go to\u00a0goodfridayappeal.com.au<\/a>\u00a0or phone 9292 1166.<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> to read the Herald Sun story.<\/p>\n

Watch the 7 News story below.<\/p>\n

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Today we celebrated a remarkable milestone \u2013 the 500th patient to benefit from epilepsy surgery at the RCH.<\/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":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4193","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=4193"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4212,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4193\/revisions\/4212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}