According to the Epilepsy Foundation, about 300,000 children in the United States have been diagnosed with epilepsy. For some of these children, epilepsy is a temporary condition which they will outgrow as they get older, while for others it is a lifelong condition. Before determining which treatment is appropriate for a given child, doctors typically evaluate the child using visual or videotaped observation and scans such as electroencephalogram, EEG, or magnetic resonance imaging, MRI.
Medication
Medication is generally the first option for the treatment of epilepsy in children. While many epilepsy drugs have not been studied in children, a few have and many others only studied in adults are commonly prescribed by doctors off-label after adjustments for child physiology have been taken into account. According to Epilepsy.com, some medications that have been studied in children and are approved for pediatric use include gabapentin, sold under the brand name Neurontin, and oxcarbazepine, sold as Trileptal. Children taking epilepsy medication are closely monitored to determine whether a change in dosage or a different drug is necessary. Most kids on epilepsy medication take a pill one to four times daily to prevent seizures.
Ketogenic Diet
A ketogenic diet is a specific food plan high in fat, low in proteins and containing no carbohydrates at all. All food on a ketogenic diet must be planned by a dietician familiar with this type of food plan so that the child will continue to get adequate nutrition. The Mayo Clinic explains that a ketogenic diet causes the body to produce ketones, which prompt the body to use fat as energy, and works in about 50 percent of children who try it. Because ketones can be dangerous to the body, children on this type of diet need to be monitored by a doctor and may need to be hospitalized while on the ketogenic plan. Some kids are able to use a modified version of the ketogenic diet that does contain some carbohydrates.
Vagus Nerve Stimulation
Some children whose seizures do not respond to medication or the ketogenic diet may be candidates for vagus nerve stimulation, or VNS. In vagus nerve stimulation, a device is implanted in the patient's chest that attaches via a wire to the vagus nerve in the neck. Every few seconds or minutes, it delivers an electrical current to stimulate the nerve, which sends a signal to the brainstem and helps prevent seizures. According to Epilepsy.com, a small 1995 study performed at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri treated 12 children using VNS, successfully reducing seizures by 90 percent in five of the 12 children. More studies are focused on determining the specific types of seizures that VNS might help in children.
Surgery
Children who have seizures that originate in a small, specific part of the brain may be candidates for surgery to control their epilepsy, according to the Mayo Clinic. Brain surgery for epilepsy is often performed using computer assistance to ensure that only the affected portion of the brain is removed. One type of surgery used in epileptic children is a hemisphereotomy, a procedure that disconnects the seizure-causing portion of the brain from the rest of the brain. Another procedure, hemispherectomy, removes larger portions of the brain and is associated with more complications and long-term side effects.
