UF Health offers Comprehensive Epilepsy Program

For more than four decades, the experts in the UF Health Comprehensive Epilepsy Program have been delivering a full range of care for children and adults with epilepsy. The interdisciplinary care team includes pediatric and adult neurologists, pediatric and adult neurosurgeons, neuroradiologists, neuropsychologists, neuropathologists and advanced registered nurse practitioners.

Less than 1 percent of hospitals nationwide have Level 3 or Level 4 designation. UF Health Shands Hospital is one of them. The UF Health Comprehensive Epilepsy Program is a Level 4 program. According to the National Association of Epilepsy Centers, a fourth-level center provides the more complex forms of intensive neurodiagnostics and monitoring, as well as more extensive medical, neuropsychological and psychosocial treatments. Fourth-level centers offer a complete evaluation for epilepsy surgery.

Did you know?

• UF Health epilepsy experts treat patients with simple and complex cases during approximately 7,500 visits a year.
• Since the program’s beginning in 1992, UF Health neurosurgeons have performed more than 1,525 epilepsy surgeries, making UF Health’s team one of the most experienced in the state of Florida.
• The epilepsy monitoring unit at the new UF Health Neuromedicine Hospital is a state-of-the-art facility designed for long-term monitoring and evaluation of people with epileptic seizures.

Non-surgical and surgical treatment

Experts at the UF Health Comprehensive Epilepsy Program offer all types of nonsurgical and surgical treatment options. Nonsurgical approaches are the first line of treatment for epilepsy. The program includes the latest antiepileptic medications, as well as experimental pharmacological interventions being implemented via clinical trials.

UF Health neurosurgeons offer the latest surgical techniques to treat epilepsy and seizure disorders. Using advanced technology to pinpoint the cause of the seizure in the brain, these surgical procedures aim to help people regain control and decrease the frequency and/or severity of their seizures.

For more information about the UF Health Comprehensive Epilepsy Program, call (352) 273-9570.