Thanks to a local neurologist/epileptologist with extensive expertise in medical technology, South Floridians who experience seizures now have the most sophisticated screening equipment for optimal diagnosis available.

For those people experiencing persistent epileptic seizures, medication management and brain surgery are the two current treatments available. Advanced computerized technology is now available to record and measure the precise areas of the brain where abnormalities occur. Once this is determined, a patient suffering from epileptic seizures can even be cured with surgery.

Eduardo Locatelli, M.D., M.P.H., former director of the epilepsy program at Cleveland Clinic Florida, has merged the utilization of the latest state-of-the-art technology with his passion for personalized patient care in a new private practice called Florida Neuroscience Center, which is located near Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale.

At Florida Neuroscience Center, Dr. Locatelli first consults with his patients in his office to get a comprehensive determination of their medical history, lifestyle, and frequency of seizures to develop an individualized screening plan. Electroencephalogram, or EEG, measurements of the electrical activity in the brain are recorded via a high-resolution neurodiagnostic system. Some patients are sent home with a portable digital monitoring device, which transmits information to Dr. Locatelli at his office. Certain patients may need to be monitored using advanced digital technology in a specialized hospital-based epilepsy monitoring unit. A brand new four-bed epilepsy monitoring unit opened in January on the newly renovated fifth floor of Holy Cross Hospital. Here, Dr. Locatelli records continuous brain wave activity with simultaneous video recording. The objective is to keep patients monitored until a seizure occurs, which will indicate the part of the brain that is affected. Sometimes, a seizure can be induced if it is known what type of stimuli causes it, for example, music or loud noises.

“This is a stark difference from the past when pages and pages of EEG measurements would have to be read and compared. Once the paper ran out, that was it,” says Dr. Locatelli. “In the past, doctors were often unable to make a proper diagnosis because they did not have the ability to consistently monitor a patient over time.”