Neurosurgical Treatment of Intractable Epilepsy

Many patients with epilepsy are refractory to anticonvulsant therapy. For some, surgery is a means to control their seizures. Temporal lobectomy, the most common neurosurgical approach to intractable epilepsy, has resulted in improvement or cure in as many as 90% of treated individuals. To determine patients suitable for surgery, presurgical selection and evaluation criteria have been devised. With epilepsy surgery becoming more widely utilized and more centers appearing in the United States, there is a growing need for neuroscience nurses to know about recent developments. This overview of surgery for epilepsy includes the presurgical evaluation process through the postoperative phase presented from a nursing perspective.