Mount Sinai South Nassau hospital opens epilepsy monitoring unit

Mount Sinai South Nassau hospital on Wednesday is scheduled to open an epilepsy monitoring unit, where the electrical activity in patients' brains will be constantly monitored to guide diagnosis and treatment of those having seizures. 

The health system invested more than $2 million in setting up and staffing the two-bed area within the larger stroke unit. In its first year, about 100 patients are expected to use the facility, which is equipped to run electroencephalogram (EEG) tests, where small, metal discs on the scalp measure electrical activity. Details of patients' brain waves and a video stream of the activity are monitored by a team of clinicians 24 hours a day.

Observing patients can help doctors assess whether they have epilepsy, a brain disorder that causes seizure episodes; fine-tune the dosage of medications; and pinpoint where seizures originate and whether surgical procedures could curtail them, said Dr. Calvin Yu, co-director of the hospital's Epilepsy Center. People usually need to spend at least two or three days in the unit, he noted.

"Most people think of the whole body shaking uncontrollably … but there's also a lot of other smaller, local seizures that might be subtle," Yu said. "People might have transient confusion. They might have only shaking in one part of their body or numbness in one part of their body." 

In recent years, South Nassau transferred about 20 to 25 patients in acute emergencies to other hospitals each year because it wasn't set up to continually monitor their brain waves. Others were referred to facilities with epilepsy monitoring units, but the need to travel into the city, to the North Shore or to Suffolk could be a deterrent, said Dr. Alan Wong, chief medical officer at South Nassau.

"Epilepsy can be dangerous, obviously, if you seize while you're driving or you're taking care of your child," Wong said. "It's very important to take care of." 

By Sarina Trangle

sarina.trangle@newsday.com@SarinaTrangle

Sarina Trangle covers affordability and cost of living issues and other business topics. She previously worked as an editor and reporter at amNewYork.