The Epilepsy Monitoring Unit (EMU) is a dedicated unit with six private rooms to evaluate epilepsy patients. The EMU’s specially trained medical, nursing, and technical personnel monitor patients 24 hours a day via state-of-the-art computer-based monitoring equipment.

At WVU, long term monitoring (LTM) for epilepsy refers to a continuous EEG (cEEG) study to record a patient’s mental activity and cerebral function over an extended period of time.  Additionally, our WVU Epilepsy specialists are available to review EEGs and continuous EEGs 24-hours a day.

At WVU’s Epilepsy Center, the team has found that patients suffer with medically intractable (difficult to control) seizures for 24 years before they have surgery, which is typical of national figures. But for most patients, we can determine if their epilepsy is difficult to treat within just a few years of seizure onset and through trials of two or three standard anti-seizure drugs.

Patients with persisting and disabling seizures have less of a chance for a long and healthy life. However, according to one large study (Sperling et al., JAMA, 1996), patients who become seizure-free as a result of surgery reduce their risk of death and injury to that of the general population. Timely surgical intervention for intractable epilepsy can save lives as well as improve the quality of life.

To ensure we are providing our patients with the most current medical and surgical techniques available anywhere in the world, WVU leads and/or participates in a large number of clinical trials.