Our Services

Epilepsy Center

Description of Services

Improving lives – one child at a time.

The Epilepsy Center at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC’s Brain Care Institute is a nationally recognized joint effort of Children’s Hospital and the University of Pittsburgh Epilepsy Center. Together, a multidisciplinary team of medical professionals from Child Neurology, Neurosurgery, Adult Neurology, Neuro-Imaging, Nuclear Medicine, and Nuclear Medicine Testing, and Neurophysiology provide high-quality care for children with all types of seizures and seizure disorders. In addition, the Epilepsy Center is the only center in the region that provides comprehensive evaluation and surgical treatment options for children with hard-to-manage, or intractable, epilepsy.

Identifying epileptic seizures.

Epilepsy Monitoring Unit

Children who are suspected of having epilepsy or who have been diagnosed with epilepsy but have had a change in their seizures are referred to Children's Hospital’s Epilepsy Monitoring Unit (EMU) for comprehensive epilepsy testing. Our patients receive individualized, customized treatment and personal care by our technicians and nurses, who staff the EMU Command Center 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Children’s EMU is one of the most technologically advanced facilities of its kind in the nation. Each of the eight private rooms in the EMU is fully equipped with state-of-the-art EEG equipment, video monitors, and intercoms to ensure instant communication with the EMU technicians and nurses.

Learn more about the EMU.

Epilepsy syndromes: Identifying your child’s type of seizure

Epilepsy specialists use a variety of factors to classify epilepsy syndromes. The type of seizure is a primary factor, but other factors are also taken into account, including:

Age of the child when seizures began
Associated clinical features
EEG pattern
Family history of seizures
Likelihood of the epilepsy improving or worsening
Neuro-imaging studies

Epileptic seizures are classified as either focal or generalized. Focal seizures take place when abnormal electrical brain activity occurs in one or more areas of one side of the brain. Seizures are classified as generalized seizures when abnormal electrical brain activity occurs on both sides of the brain.

At Children’s Hospital’s Brain Care Institute, we treat all types of epilepsy. Below are some of the most common epilepsy types we see in our patients:

* Febrile seizures can be either focal or generalized.

Learn more about the types of seizures we treat.

Generalized Seizures

Generalized seizures affect both sides of the brain. They cause a loss of consciousness and a postictal state (a period characterized by drowsiness, confusion, nausea and headache) after the seizure occurs. These types of seizures include:

Absence seizures (also called petit mal seizures)
Atonic seizures (also called drop attacks)
Clonic seizures
Generalized tonic-clonic seizures (also called grand mal seizures)
Myoclonic seizures
Tonic seizures

Focal Seizures

Focal seizures take place when abnormal electrical brain function occurs in one or more areas of one side of the brain. Focal seizures also may be called partial seizures. With focal seizures the child may experience an aura before the seizure occurs. An aura is a strange feeling in vision, hearing, smell, touch, or memory. These types of seizures include: