View clinical trials related to Refractory Epilepsy.
Filter by:This study will enroll patients with epilepsy who are being evaluated for epilepsy surgery and have intracranial EEG electrodes. In this study, the aim is to record brain signals from areas important in social and emotional processing and to understand how electrical brain stimulation - called neuromodulation - affects such processing. Patients enrolled in this study will be asked to view images depicting a variety of emotionally positive, negative, or neutral themes. As the patient views these images, a small amount of imperceptible and painless electric current will be used to map function of certain parts of a human brain. The overarching goal of the study is to determine if neuromodulation can be used in certain areas of the brain to treat cognitive disorders such as memory loss and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Refractory epilepsy patients implanted with a vagus nerve stimulator perform a memory test at baseline in three conditions: invasive vagus nerve stimulation (VNS), transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) and sham stimulation. After 6 weeks of VNS treatment, the memory test is repeated in two condition: invasive vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) and sham stimulation. The endpoint of this experiment is assessing the effect of VNS and taVNS on memory performance.
The study is investigating if following the low glutamate diet for 1 month, as compared to care as usual, can improve seizure frequency, severity, and duration; cognitive functioning; and/or quality of life in children with epilepsy.
This study is to evaluate the safety and the intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG) changes of using NaviFUS System for the treatment of patients with drug resistant epilepsy.
Refractory epilepsies caused by an autoimmune mechanisms lead in children to progressive neurodegeneration. Immunomodulation therapy is effective only in a half of such cases. New approaches are undertaken. It was found that ADRC (adipose derived regenerative cells) isolated from adipose tissue consist mesenchymal stem cells that act as tissue repair cells. The purpose of this experimental study is to evaluate the possibility and safety of the use of multipotent mesenchymal adipose derived regenerative cells (ADRC) in patients diagnosed with an autoimmune determined refractory epilepsy. Study protocol: Intrathecal infusions of autologous ADRC obtained after liposuction followed by isolation by Cytori system will be performed. Procedure will be repeated 3 times every 3 months in each patient. Neurological status, brain MRI, cognitive function and antiepileptic effect will be supervised during 24 months.
This study evaluates to what extend electrical source imaging (ESI) provides nonredundant information in the evaluation of epilepsy surgery candidates. Epilepsy surgery normally requires an extensive multimodal workup to identify the epileptic focus. This workup includes Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), electroencephalography (EEG) without source imaging, video monitoring and when needed Positron Emission Tomography (PET), Magnetoencephalography (MEG), Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) and invasive EEG recordings using implanted electrodes. ESI estimates the location of the epileptic source with a high sensitivity and specificity using inverse source estimation methods on non-invasive EEG recordings. This study aims to investigate the clinical utility of ESI using low-density (LD, 25 channels) and high-density (HD, 256 channels) EEG. Clinical utility is defined in this study as the proportion of patients in whom the patient management plan was changed, based on the results of ESI. Should ESI be added to the routine work-up of epilepsy surgery candidates.
Follow up of the patients at Ghent University Hospital treated with hippocampal DBS for refractory epilepsy. Endpoints: - Long term evaluation of the effects of hippocampal DBS on seizure frequency and cognition - Evaluation of the satisfaction of patients and neurologist regarding the rechargeable DBS battery
Perampanel is a non-competitive antagonist of the AMPA ( 2-amino-3-(5-méthyl-3-hydroxy-1,2-oxazol-4-yl)) propanoïc acid receptors which was approved by the European Medicines Agency as adjunctive treatment for partial-onset seizures in patients 12 years and older, in 2012. The aim of this study is to evaluate effectiveness and safety of perampanel as add-on treatment in patients with refractory epilepsy. The investigators retrospectively collected and analyzed the data of patients with refractory epilepsy who had been treated with perampanel between May of 2014 and April of 2015. In total, one hundred and ten patients were included (mean age 41 [SD = 15.2]). The mean duration of epilepsy was 25 years (SD = 14.4). The mean perampanel dose was 5.7 mg/d (SD = 2.3). The retention rate was 77% at 6 months and 61% at 12 months. After 6 months, the responder rate was 35.5%. Eight patients (7.3%) became seizure free. Adverse effects were reported in 60 patients (54.5%). Most common side effects were behaviour disturbance (22.7%), dizziness (15.5%), asthenia (11.8), somnolence (10%) and ataxia (9.1).
This is a single site, non-randomized, prospective, open-label, interventional pilot/feasibility study. Patients recruited will have medically-refractory focal neocortical epilepsy, defined on the basis of presence of focal spikes and (if available) focal seizure onsets originating from the lateral cortical surface of any lobe. All patients and referring physicians will be requested to maintain their current antiepileptic drugs throughout the study with changes after enrollment permitted only to maintain pre-enrollment drug levels, or if clinically necessary. The primary outcome measure will be the change in seizure frequency (seizures/week) as compared to baseline. Patients with medically-refractory neocortical epilepsy will receive cathodal tDCS administered to the seizure focus for 10 sessions over a 2-week period with the allowance of make-up sessions in week three. Subjects will be evaluated at baseline, during the stimulation sessions, and 8 weeks after the completion of the tDCS visits
One third of children with epilepsy have seizures that are medically intractable. Uncontrolled seizures pose a variety of risks to children, including higher rates of mortality, developmental delay and cognitive impairment. Epilepsy surgery is not a feasible option for most children with refractory epilepsy. The ketogenic diet and the modified Atkins diet have been shown to be effective alternative treatments in children with refractory epilepsy. However, these need parents to be educated, and understand complex instructions of weighing foods and diet preparation. Therefore, children with parents with low levels of literacy and poor socioeconomic status have not been able to benefit from these therapies. Also, the paucity of trained dieticians and limited availability of labeled foods in resource-constraint settings has made these dietary therapies even more inaccessible. This study aimed to to develop a simple-to-administer variation of the modified Atkins diet for use in children with refractory epilepsy and to evaluate the efficacy and tolerability of this simplified modified Atkins diet in children with refractory epilepsy in a randomized controlled open-label trial.