The team at Providence Epilepsy Services specializes in two key areas: We offer inpatient monitoring to more precisely define a diagnosis for people who have seizures, and we help women gain better control of epilepsy, including during pregnancy.

Inpatient Epilepsy Monitoring Unit

Providence St. Vincent Medical Center has two hospital (inpatient) beds dedicated to monitoring people who experience unpredictable, recurrent seizures. If you take advantage of this service, you will stay with us for several days so that we can continuously monitor you with a combination of video and electroencephalogram (EEG). While the EEG records your brain’s electrical activity, the video recording shows how your behavior is affected during a seizure. The EEG results, video recording and neuropsychology exam combine to help us make the most accurate diagnosis possible.

A neuropsychologist will also examine you during your stay on the inpatient unit. He will ask you questions and have you take some tests to find out how well your brain is working. We’ll use this information to help make your diagnosis.

Goals for your stay on the inpatient unit may include:

• Determining the precise area where seizures start in your brain
• Determining if your seizures are epileptic, non-epileptic or both
• Creating an individual treatment plan for you. Are you a candidate for surgery or for a vagal nerve stimulator? Would another antiepileptic drug be more helpful?

We’ll design an individualized treatment plan for you based on the information we gather during you inpatient stay.

For more information about inpatient monitoring at Providence Epilepsy Services, please call Dr. Mark Yerby’s office, 503-291-5300.

Read more about what happens during inpatient monitoring.

Women and Epilepsy

Women with epilepsy must cope with a unique set of problems. Changing levels of hormones during menstruation and pregnancy can increase your risk of having a seizure. Your menstrual cycle may be irregular, and you may have trouble becoming pregnant. Women with epilepsy also must face increased risk to their own health and to their baby’s health during pregnancy.

Epilepsy research has not included women of childbearing age. Clinicians have had to prescribe treatment options based on research from a different patient population.

Today pregnant women with epilepsy are encouraged to take part in pregnancy registries to provide important information on how to care for pregnant women with epilepsy. Research efforts are helping women with epilepsy achieve safe, healthy pregnancies. Among these efforts, Dr. Yerby has helped define the effects of antiepileptic drugs on pregnancy. He devotes much of his work today to helping women gain control of their seizures before and during pregnancy.

To learn more about our services for women, contact Dr. Mark Yerby’s office, 503-291-5300.