Our dedicated epilepsy providers see over 2000 patient visits per year to provide comprehensive care to people with epilepsy in New Mexico and adjacent states. Our providers treat patients from the first time seizure to special conditions such as epilepsy during pregnancy and most complicated or refractory seizures. Your first appointment will last at least an hour while a doctor specializing in epilepsy will review your medical history, examine your motor and sensory skills, balance, coordination, reflexes, and mental functioning.
Bring a family member or friend who has seen one of your seizures or provide the phone number of someone the neurologist can call during the appointment to ask about your seizure symptoms. You'll also want to bring your medications and EEG or MRI test results.
Please bring:
After your physical exam, a doctor may request more testing to get thorough, detailed information about your symptoms and conditions, so the epilepsy care team can determine the best treatment. You will gain access to:
At our Epilepsy Monitoring Unit, you might spend a few days receiving 24-hour video electroencephalograph (EEG) recording that captures the moment of a seizure. During monitoring, you'll stay in a private room with an extra bed for a relative or friend to provide support. Doctors will review the recordings to analyze your behavior and brain waves.
Magnetoencephalography (MEG) measures the brain's magnetic activity to help doctors precisely locate brain tissues that cause seizures. We use the most up-to-date MEG technology available in the world.
Here at UNMH we pride ourselves in patient centered care. What that means is all hands on deck! Your case will be presented to our ENTIRE epilepsy team. We have an epilepsy conference once a week to share our patient stories with our team. This helps get second, third, and even fourth opinions on your epilepsy. This way we can make sure we are all in agreement on the next steps in your plan of care. Your doctor or the epilepsy coordinator will call you with the results of the conference and to tell you what your next steps are.
If surgery is what is decided as the best plan for you, you will then be scheduled with a neurosurgeon to talk about the surgical options and process.
Multidisciplinary Epilepsy Surgery Conference – When all the tests are done, our team meets. Team members include neurologists, neurosurgeons, nurses, neuro-psychologists, psychiatrists, neuro-radiologists, social workers or case managers, and EEG technologists. All decisions are made by the team. Together we review all the information gathered so far. We then decide what will be the best treatment options for our patients. This information is later discussed with the patients and their family.
https://www.epilepsyfoundation.org
When providing first aid for Tonic Clonic (Grand Mal) seizures, these are the key things to remember:
An un-complicated generalized Tonic Clonic (Grand Mal) seizure in someone who has epilepsy is not a medical emergency, even though it looks like one. It stops naturally after a few minutes without ill effects. The average person is able to continue about their business after a rest period, and may need only limited assistance, or no assistance at all in getting home.
If a patient experiences the following conditions an ambulance should be called:
If the ambulance arrives after consciousness has returned, the person should be asked whether the seizure was associated with epilepsy and whether emergency room care is wanted. Follow the link below for more information.
It is the patient's responsibility to report the incidents of the seizure in the state of NM. New Mexico has no statutory provision requiring physicians to report patients diagnosed with epilepsy or seizures to a central state agency. Please see the links below regarding the New Mexico Driver Licensing Laws.
https://www.epilepsy.com/node/2008796
