These pages are about surgery in the UK. If you are looking for information about driving laws in another country, please contact your local epilepsy organisation.
The risks depend on the type of epilepsy brain surgery. Here are some possible risks.
Memory problems
The temporal lobes handle memory and language. This means that any surgery on these parts of the brain can cause difficulties in remembering, understanding and speaking. The memory problems can be for things that the child has seen, called ‘visual memory’, or for things the child has heard. This is called ‘verbal memory’.
Epilepsy Action has more information about memory problems.
More seizures than before
Cutting the connections between the two hemispheres (sides) of the brain in corpus callosotomy stops seizures spreading from one hemisphere to the other. However, it doesn’t stop all the seizures, only the ‘drop’ seizures. In fact, some children may have more focal (partial) seizures, but they are less severe.
Visual symptoms
After hemispherectomy (where the outer layer of one half of the brain is removed), a child’s vision may be reduced or they may have double vision. This is usually temporary. They may also have some difficulties with their peripheral vision. This may be temporary or permanent and will depend on how much of the brain has been removed.
One-sided paralysis
After hemispherectomy, a child may have limited use of one side of their body. This is called a hemiparesis or hemiplegia. Physiotherapy and occupational therapy can help with this.
Behaviour problems
Some children may have had behaviour problems, or problems with communicating or having relationships with other people before surgery. Epilepsy surgery itself will probably not help these problems. It is even possible that in a very few children, these problems may become a little worse.
Benefits and risks
Despite the tests before epilepsy brain surgery, it’s not always possible to predict what the risks are for each child. However, following pre-surgery tests the doctors will be able to make an educated assessment. They will be able to fully discuss this with you before any decision about surgery is made.
Doctors will only go ahead with epilepsy brain surgery if the tests show that the benefits are likely to be higher than the risk of complications.
For more information about risks of epilepsy brain surgery go to Mayo Clinic website
We can provide references and information on the source material we use to write our epilepsy advice and information pages. Please contact our Epilepsy Helpline by email at helpline@epilepsy.org.uk.
Acknowledgement
Epilepsy Action wishes to thank Dr Richard Appleton, consultant paediatric neurologist at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Liverpool, UK, for help in reviewing this information.
This information has been produced under the terms of The Information Standard.
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