MIAMI – Mark Weinberg has trouble remembering the car accident that changed his life at 16.
“My parents say I was in a coma for four days,” he shared.
Weinberg survived but suffered a severe brain injury and started having seizures every week.
“I’ll go up to someone and say, ‘Can you hold my hand? I think I’m having a seizure,'” he said.
Dr. Andres Kanner, the chief of the epilepsy division at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine, said a seizure is like a short circuit in the brain.
“They can lose awareness of their surroundings and be unresponsive and they don’t know what’s happening around them,” Kanner explained.
Kanner said medication can control seizures in 70 percent of patients, but for Weinberg, that wasn’t the case.
“I think I’ve been on almost every medicine,” Weinberg said.
Now, new technology is helping patients like Weinberg. It’s called responsive neuro stimulation, or the RNS system.
“Imagine a pacemaker, which has a computer chip in it,” Kanner said.
The device made by Neuropace is implanted under the scalp and connected to the areas in the brain causing seizure activity.
“As it detects that abnormal pattern, it sends an electrical stimulation,” Kanner continued.
That stimulation prevents the seizure from happening. Since having the device implanted, Weinberg’s seizures have been cut in half.
“Even if I do have them, they’re shorter, so I’m not as scared as I used to be,” Weinberg said.
Now, he’s going to college, living a life with fewer seizures.
Kanner said studies show the device is safe and does not affect cognitive function. Kanner said in the first year, 30 to 40 percent of patients notice their seizure frequency may be cut in half.
via Health Beat: Slowing down seizures – WFMZ
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