An entire team focused on you — not just your epilepsy
Coming to Mayo Clinic isn’t only about finding answers and the best treatments. It’s about finding the right team of experts who take the time to listen and consider every aspect of your care.
Epilepsy care at Mayo Clinic
With an entire family of compassionate medical experts by your side — the Mayo Clinic experience is different.
At Mayo Clinic, the world’s leading doctors provide unhurried consultations, taking the time to get it right. You are at the center of your health care journey, surrounded by experts from a wide array of medical specialties who explain your imaging studies, evaluate the root cause of your epilepsy and discuss treatment options personalized for you.
Your care journey
- Find the right individualized care the first time to reduce seizures
- Get a more refined diagnosis through advanced imaging
- Discover option for uncontrolled seizures
- Find treatment options for multiple conditions and complex cases
- Be seen by a team with unparalleled experience
Find the right care the first time for your seizures
Successful treatment starts with an accurate diagnosis. Whether you are newly diagnosed or if you’ve been living for years with a seizure disorder, you will be seen in a Level 4 Comprehensive Epilepsy Center at Mayo Clinic. Level 4 is the highest level designation granted by the National Association of Epilepsy Centers.
Mayo Clinic's locations in Arizona, Florida and Minnesota use the latest diagnostic imaging to pinpoint the exact cause of your seizures. Then, Mayo tailors a care plan designed just for you using the latest treatment innovations. Mayo Clinic teams diagnose and treat thousands of patients with epilepsy each year. These teams have successfully treated even the most complex cases.
Individualized care plans
Your collaborative epilepsy care may involve several customized treatment options:
- Medications carefully selected to fit your needs
- Surgery to remove or disrupt the area where seizures originate
- Stimulation therapy to disrupt seizure patterns in the brain
- Dietary considerations, such as the ketogenic diet, which have been known to affect seizure frequency
More than 900 procedures are performed by Mayo Clinic's neurosurgeons each year for epilepsy patients, including:
Extraoperative brain mapping
This procedure aims to locate the seizure source. Using this procedure, the multidisciplinary team can determine if the removal of brain tissue will cure seizures while maintaining other function. Types include grid insertion and stereotactic electroencephalogram.
Stereotactic minimally invasive laser surgery
This less-invasive treatment option has advantages for improved quality of life. During this procedure, surgeons ablate, or burn away, the area of the brain causing seizures.
Neuromodulation treatments
These treatments sometimes are used when the seizure area cannot be removed. Instead, these treatments use devices and electrodes designed to stimulate a specific area when a seizure begins to stop a major seizure. Types include deep-brain stimulation, responsive neurostimulation, and vagus nerve stimulation.
Temporal lobectomy
This treatment, which involves a brain resection, is used in select cases to reduce seizure frequency and severity, or stop seizures completely.
Discover options for uncontrolled seizures
Even with medication, many patients still experience seizures. Ongoing seizures may affect quality of life, including employment, driving and interpersonal relationships.
There are multiple treatment options available for epilepsy. Unfortunately, seizures remain inadequately controlled with currently available therapies in one-third of patients with epilepsy. As a Level 4 comprehensive epilepsy center, Mayo Clinic is positioned to identify the best treatment for drug-resistant epilepsy patients. These treatment options may include clinical trials, neurostimulation devices and, in some cases, surgery.
Mayo Clinic is a leading institution in the advancement of diagnosis and treatment of autoimmune epilepsy syndromes, and houses a world-leading immunology laboratory. Our teams work to advance new, cutting-edge treatment options and have established comprehensive neuromodulation treatment services for drug-resistant epilepsy patients in whom surgery is not an option. As a high volume epilepsy center, Mayo Clinic performs several complex surgical evaluations every year using advanced surgical techniques and state-of-the-art technology.
Second opinions matter
Second opinions aren’t about questioning your doctor. They're about comfort in knowing you are receiving the best care and outcome for your individual situation.
For someone who has had a difficult time controlling seizures, second opinions from a comprehensive epilepsy center like Mayo Clinic may uncover new treatment options. A second opinion from Mayo means taking advantage of the latest research and medical discoveries, and gaining access to new diagnostic imaging, treatments and clinical trials.
For those who are newly diagnosed with epilepsy, a second opinion from Mayo Clinic ensures that trained neuroradiologists will look for the source of your epilepsy and pinpoint even minor abnormalities in imaging that may have been missed. Mayo's teams have treated the most complex types of epilepsy, and they can find the best treatment for you.
Get a more refined diagnosis through advanced imaging
Understanding the exact root cause of a seizure is critical for an accurate diagnosis and effective treatment plan. In addition to being a world-renowned epilepsy center, Mayo Clinic is a leader in epilepsy research and education. As Mayo Clinic doctors continuously conduct research that improves imaging techniques, new treatment therapies may be available to patients who may benefit from a refined diagnosis. Your team will work with you to determine which tests are best for you.
Experts in Neurology describe advanced diagnostics and sophisticated imaging techniques that, when used to detect or focus on the abnormalities causing epilepsy, can help guide treatment options and ultimately transform patient care.
The latest in imaging and diagnostics are available at Mayo Clinic, including studies designed to assess:
Blood flow abnormalities
- Single photon emission computerized tomography
- Subtraction ictal single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) coregistered with MRI
- Statistical parametric mapping-based methods
Changes in electrical activity
- High-frequency oscillation density mapping
- Stereo electroencephalogram
- Functional MRI
Changes in chemistry
- Positron emission tomography MRI
Subtle lesions or other abnormalities
- Morphometric Analysis Program imaging
- Simultaneous positron emission tomography MRI
- Other tests, including the 7-Tesla MRI available at Mayo Clinic's Minnesota campus — the first clinically available in the U.S.
Genetic testing is also available for complex conditions.
Find treatment options for multiple conditions, complex cases
Mayo Clinic epilepsy treatment is more than neurology. Treatment includes experts across multiple specialties working together.
Mayo Clinic epilepsy treatment goes beyond a single neurologist working to treat your seizures. Here, experts across multiple specialties work together to personalize a treatment plan for you, accounting for all of your health care needs. Your individualized treatment plan is tailored to include concerns related to:
- Learning disabilities
- Behavioral issues
- Depression
- Lifestyle and independence
Autoimmune Epilepsy
Mayo has extensive experience treating patients whose epilepsy is caused by autoimmune disorders, which are disorders that cause a misguided immune response to the body’s own organs. Mayo Clinic researchers develop new approaches to diagnosing and treatment autoimmune epilepsy, a central nervous system disorder that results in seizures.
We have experience to find exactly the care you need.
At Mayo Clinic, multiple experts collaborate across medical specialties to understand the cause of your epilepsy and outline the best course of treatment for your seizures and other medical needs.
Effective epilepsy treatment is more than neurology. Treatment includes a multidisciplinary team of epileptologists, neuroradiologists, neurosurgeons, specialized nurses and others working together.
Not only do Mayo Clinic doctors specialize in specific types and causes of epilepsy, they have access to other Mayo Clinic doctors who span virtually every specialty of care. Our epilepsy specialists collaborate and frequently consult with other physicians and researchers — working from a single health record — to provide a truly tailored experience for each individual patient.
An entire medical team personalizes treatment for you.
Mayo Clinic teams evaluate and treat more than 8,000 adult and pediatric patients with epilepsy each year. Because Mayo's physicians are also researchers and educators, Mayo Clinic is on the forefront of new diagnostic and treatment options. Mayo applies medical discoveries to tailor treatment based on the exact root cause of your seizure disorder, giving you the exact care you need.
Your comprehensive list includes:
- Care by multidisciplinary teams, starting with neurologists who have specialized training in clinical epilepsy and neurodiagnostic imaging for seizures
- A team-oriented approach with input from specialties when needed, such as Neuroradiology, Neurosurgery, Psychiatry and Psychology
- Seamless, coordinated care at a single campus with a single health record, so you don't have to worry about transferring knowledge from one appointment to another
- Access to all of your tests, notes and health record (You have the same information as your care team through your Mayo Clinic Patient Online Services care portal or the Mayo Clinic app
- Access to new and innovative therapies, including clinical research trials
Mayo Clinic's rankings and expertise
Rated a Level 4 Comprehensive Epilepsy Center by the National Association of Epilepsy Center.
The National Association of Epilepsy Centers rates Mayo Clinic's campuses in Arizona, Florida and Minnesota as Level 4 comprehensive epilepsy centers, providing intensive neurodiagnostic monitoring; medical, neuropsychological and psychosocial treatment; and epilepsy surgery.
Experts in Neurology and Neurosurgery
Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona, and Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida are ranked among the Best Hospitals for Neurology and Neurosurgery by U.S. News & World Report.
"My care has been amazing, and I have such confidence in the team at the Mayo Clinic. I'm excited by how good I am feeling and that I've been able to do things that make me feel alive."
