Lennox Gastaut Syndrome: Treatment, Procedure, Cost and Side Effects

One of the most severe syndromes of epilepsy, Lennox Gastaut Syndrome starts in a person during his childhood. Children suffering from LGS syndrome are prone to experience seizures very often. Seizures that varies from person to person generally initiates at the age of 4. Commonly experienced seizures are tonic, atonic and myoclonic, whereas they also experience periods when they remain seizure free. Each child suffering from LGS has some sort of impaired intellectual functioning and lacks information processing. These disabilities can be easily judged from the behavioural disturbances and developmental lacking they usually face.

The cause of Lennox Gastuat Syndrome remains the lack of oxygen supply to the brain. This kind of disability since birth has its roots in the pregnancy complications, injuries and also the low and premature birth of the child. Cortical dysplasia, a brain problem in which some of the nerves and tissues of the brain fails to get tied properly through its development in the mother’s womb. Another cause is the occurrence of tuberous sclerosis that results in the growth of non-cancerous lump like tumours all throughout the body parts including the brain.

The children born with such dysfunctioning brain abilities are very hard to treat. Medical researchers are yet to discover the best treatment procedures to treat epilepsy and its adjoining disease.

Children with LGS tend to suffer from an acute functioning problem in thinking, evaluating and executing. Added to that, seizures of different types are experienced most often. In case of any such symptoms that indicate the presence of LGS, the kid should immediately be taken to a doctor.

The doctor would ask for a detailed information regarding when the problem got noticed, the frequency of seizures in a day, the span of each seizure, complications involved during birth, symptoms the child is facing, in case of brain injuries and the medical history of the child.

A keen look at the symptoms will help the doctor in advising the accurate treatment option for him. The basic aim is to reduce the frequency of seizure attack and provide the child with a healthy and peaceful life. Various medicines are useful during this stage. The ketogenic diet is observed to produce amazing results in many cases.

In case, medications and other treatment options won’t produce a result, the doctor may advise getting a surgery.

For vague nerve stimulator, the device is placed on the arm or even the chest. Its job is to send electrical impulses to all the vague or disabled nerves from the abdomen to the brain that results in controlling seizures.However, in case of RNS stimulator, the machine is placed inside the skull of the person. It remains connected to the brain. Further, it sends electrical impulses and control seizures.

Corpus callosotomy is suggested to a patient experiencing extreme seizures where the right and the left hemisphere of the brain is divided and restricts the spread of the seizures to the other half.

People, especially children suffering from LGS is likely to get the treatment.

People or children not experiencing any symptoms of LGS do not need to undergo this treatment.

If the patient is under medication, regular check-up and consultation with the doctor stands essential in this case. The doctor is supposed to keep track with each and every action and evaluate if the medicines are rightly working and improvement is attained. At the same time, following a ketogenic diet can also help in improving the condition.

LGS is an incurable disease. It is with the help of medicines and therapies that the frequency of seizures is kept under control.

Cost of the treatment includes consultation fees of the doctor and the medicine cost. However, cases where surgery is performed costs are expensive and varies accordingly.

LGS is an incurable disease. It initiates in a person at a very early age between 2 to 4 years. Patients suffering from LGS are required to be under medication most of the time and in some cases of severity, surgery is performed.