Comprehensive Epilepsy Care

The Summa Health Comprehensive Epilepsy Center is one of the country’s only population health-centric comprehensive epilepsy treatment centers. Summa Health offers individuals afflicted with epilepsy-associated challenges:

• Cutting-edge medical therapies
• State-of-the-art surgical options ranging from minimally invasive laser ablation therapy to implantable devices
• Epilepsy-specific diets
• Behavioral health programs
• Integrative therapies
• A developing telehealth initiative

Our robust program includes:

• Emphasis is placed on all epilepsy-related challenges. The Summa Health epilepsy neurologists, advanced practice providers and team members not only facilitate tailoring focused medical and state-of-the-art surgical care options for at-risk and vulnerable populations under a population health model, but also coordinate wraparound services for mental health challenges often co-occurring with epilepsy. We educate our patients, their families and caregivers to maintain preventive practices outside of the medical center. 
• ‘Off-the-radar’ management of epilepsy. The attention that patients receive outside the four walls of a hospital not only influences what happens in the hospital but also in their own communities. 
• A data-driven environment that is family-centered. Our data-driven infrastructure accommodates connecting all available treatments and resources with patients and their families struggling with epilepsy-related challenges.

Our comprehensive epilepsy center is committed to facilitating community-based wraparound services for the medical and psychosocial well-being of patients and families living with epilepsy. Additionally, a culture of collaboration between Summa Health and Akron’s Children’s Level 4 Epilepsy Center offers a comprehensive approach in treating children transitioning to adult care and adults diagnosed with epilepsy-related conditions. 

A Comprehensive Epilepsy Center 

Your course of treatment starts with a consultation with an epilepsy specialist and may include scalp electroencephalography (EEG) testing to record electrical brain activity. High-resolution neuroimaging is also used to identify subtle structural causes of epilepsy. We provide both inpatient and outpatient testing including diagnostic neuropsychological assessments to identify and lateralize cognitive deficits.

Our specialized EEG-monitoring equipped hospital rooms are connected to a central control room in our Epilepsy Monitoring Unit (EMU). The control room is where EEG technologists, board-certified epileptologists, and neuroscientists observe brain wave activity in real-time to assist in diagnosing patients. The EMU is staffed 24/7 by skilled EEG technologists and technicians. Our experts use this specialized inpatient unit to:

• Determine whether episodes experienced by a patient are seizures and, if so, whether they are epileptic seizures or non-epileptic spells
• Determine rapid medication adjustments in a controlled environment
• Evaluate seizure activity during sleep
• Map seizure-onset regions
• Perform neuropsychological testing
• Determine medical treatment plans
• Determine whether a patient is a candidate for epilepsy surgery
• Discuss patients in weekly multidisciplinary conferences

For more information, please talk with your physician or call the Summa Health Comprehensive Epilepsy Center at 234.867.6970 with your questions.