How effective is surgery at curing epilepsy?

Question

What are the risks?

Answer 1

Surgery is an alternative for some people whose seizures cannot be controlled by medications. It has been used for more than a century, but its use dramatically increased in the 1980s and '90s, reflecting its effectiveness as an alternative to seizure medicines. The benefits of surgery should be weighed carefully against its risks, however, because there is no guarantee that it will be successful in controlling seizures.

Epilepsy surgery can be especially beneficial to patients who have seizures associated with structural brain abnormalities, such as benign brain tumors, malformations of blood vessels, etc. The strategy is to identify the area of abnormally discharging neurons (the "seizure focus") and to remove it when possible. In certain patients without a well defined epilepsy focus, surgery can sometimes help, by disconnecting or isolating the abnormal area so that seizures no longer spread to the neighbouring normal brain.

RISKS:
1. The risks of neurological deficits, such as muscle weakness, loss of sensation, problems with coordination, etc. These depend on which area of brain is operated on.
2. Brain heamorhage
3. Infection
4. The risk of the anesthesia
5. failure of the operation!

Answer 2

In my experience one can do just about anything with a person who is experiencing an epilepsy seizure but it
won't last long enough to complete a surgical hack job
if that was the idea. A good use still might be found
for those few minutes when recall is so thrust aside.
If epilepsy could be triggered at-will the disability might
have value piloting spacecraft transition from normal to
ultra-light speed in a process that might make the non-
epileptic brain stressed into permanent madness.

Answer 3

They can separate your brain into 2 halves in a surgery called a corpus callosotomy. It reduces seizure frequency by as much as 90%, but it's a pretty major surgery and wouldn't be indicated unless you were really fucked up.

Answer 4

Totally ineffective.

Answer 5

no it dosent work,they take half your brain out,so risk is minimal,

Answer 6

not at all :(