New monitoring has been in use at the Hietzing Clinic for a year and leads to optimized treatment methods for epilepsy patients through objective key figures
Vienna (OTS) – Epileptic seizures can appear out of the blue and often puzzle doctors. The best possible treatment requires the most objective and reliable picture of the seizure activity of people with epilepsy. “Subcutaneous EEG monitoring provides an objective measurement of seizure burden over a period of up to 15 months. This is particularly important because patients often do not even notice the attacks themselves and therefore a diary is not enough.”
explains Prim. Christoph Baumgartner, head of the neurological department at the Hietzing Clinic.
In contrast to video-EEG monitoring, which is currently considered the gold standard, which requires inpatient admission to the clinic and can usually be carried out for a maximum of 5-7 days, patients can go about their everyday lives as normal during subcutaneous monitoring . To do this, an implant with 3 EEG electrodes is inserted under the scalp. “Using the data recorded, we can determine how many seizures occurred at what time and whether the number and intensity of the seizures changed over time during therapy.”
explains Baumgartner.
4,570 inpatient epilepsy patients in the WIGEV clinics
In all clinics of the Vienna Health Association (including AKH Vienna) over 4,500 epilepsy patients were treated in 2023. About half of them (2,040) have epilepsy as their main diagnosis, the rest have it as a secondary diagnosis. More than half of these patients (1,400) are adults, a third of whom are treated in the neurology department of the Hietzing Clinic.
This is how an epileptic seizure occurs
About 1 percent of the population has epilepsy. This disease involves a temporary malfunction of the brain. The appearance can be very diverse. “During an epileptic seizure, nerve cells release too many signals at once, which can lead to disturbances in consciousness, but also movements and perceptions.”
so Baumgartner.
Therapies for epilepsy
Therapy can be carried out in a variety of ways: “The basis is seizure suppressants, i.e. medications that suppress seizures. In around a third of patients, the seizures cannot be adequately controlled with the medication. Epilepsy surgery or neurostimulation are available for these patients.”
emphasizes Christoph Baumgartner. “For the right therapy, it is of great importance to obtain high quality data about the frequency, duration and intensity of the attacks. This is very possible thanks to the long period of use of subcutaneous EEG.”
so Baumgartner.
Epilepsy is considered cured if patients have been seizure-free for at least 10 years and have not taken any seizure suppressants for at least 5 years within this period.
Questions & Contact:
Mag.a Katharina Eckerstorfer
Vienna Health Association
Press spokesperson
Phone: +43 664 88 89 70 31
Email: katharina.eckerstorfer@gesundheitsverbund.at