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Douglaston
neurologist uses device to reduce seizures in patients
By Jeremy Walsh
Epilepsy, a condition of recurring seizures
caused by a malfunction in the brain's electrical system, can be
debilitating and often causes a sufferer to miss work and break
appointments.
Dr. Gershon Ney, head of the Ney Centers for
Epilepsy Care and Sleep Medicine in Douglaston, knows this well. He
apologized for the absence of his star patient, a 37-year-old licensed
social worker who had to bow out of a scheduled newspaper interview.
But he said her absence was not due to a seizure. The woman was about
to give birth to her fourth child.
"It's not a pregnancy she would have undertaken without the device," he
said.
Ney's
private practice specializes in an epilepsy treatment called vagus
nerve stimulation, which is effectively a pacemaker for the brain. He
said a lot of women who suffer from seizures turn to him because the
treatment is nonchemical and will not affect a developing fetus.
Ney
opened his practice five years ago, but he has worked at epilepsy
centers at Long Island Jewish Medical Center and New York Hospital
Queens since the early 1990s.
The device is composed of a
coin-sized battery and stimulator implanted in the chest, a tiny wire
running along the collarbone and a small metal coil attached to the
left vagus nerve in the neck.
Because the vagus nerve is
connected to other nerve fibers that send electrical signals throughout
the brain, the electrical pulses from the device pass through the
entire organ and discourage the condition that causes seizures.
The
surgery, he said, is usually performed by a neurosurgeon, although it
does not involve any direct work on the brain. It typically takes 90
minutes and the patient is able to leave the hospital the same day.
The
procedure is not for everyone, Ney explained. According to the Epilepsy
Foundation of America, a charitable organization, 3 million Americans
suffer from the condition, and between 60 percent and 70 percent of
those respond to anti-seizure medications. The VNS device is for the
patients who do not respond to the drugs, he said.
Ney said he
is the chief specialist in Queens who handles VNS. He said one other
doctor in the borough treats about one patient a year with VNS, while
he handles between 30 and 40.
Most are high-functioning,
developmentally disabled persons, he said, pointing out that one in
three developmentally disabled people is epileptic.
Ney said the
device is most helpful to patients with mild to moderate seizures who
have not seen positive results from numerous medications, although it
does have some effect on severe cases.
"If you use it for 20
years, you see what it is," he said. "For people with terrible
epilepsy, this isn't a home run, but for most people I'd say it's at
least 20 percent more effective than medication with no side effects." |
