Epilepsy Monitoring Unit at Banner Good Samaritan

Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center offers our epilepsy and seizure disorder patients state-of-the-art services to ensure accurate diagnoses and effective plans of treatment.
  
Our six-bed Epilepsy Monitoring Unit at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center allows doctors to better assess a patient’s seizures over several days in an inpatient setting through the use of various testing and 24-hour monitoring. 

Monitoring typically requires a two- to five-day hospital stay. Seizure monitoring usually requires patients to stop taking some or all of their seizure medications, which can result in frequent, more intense seizures during monitoring. Patients may be asked to remain awake some nights to provoke seizures, as well. Patients will be monitored by video and through continuous EEG, 24-hours a day.

Epilepsy is a medical condition that produces seizures affecting a variety of mental and physical functions. It’s also called a seizure disorder. When a person has two or more seizures, they are considered to have epilepsy.  A seizure occurs when a brief, strong surge of electrical activity affects part or all of the brain. One in 10 adults will have a seizure sometime during their life.

Our Team
The Epilepsy Monitoring Unit's Medical Directors are prominent Mayo Clinic Epileptologists Joseph Drazkowski, MD, Joseph Sirven, MD, Katherine Noe, MD and Matthew Hoerth, MD, who have partnered with Phoenix Neurological Associates, Ltd.  

Banner Good Samaritan Neurodiagnostics Manager, Renee Schwarz, R. EEG/EP T., C.M.E.T., R. NCST., CNCT, is the manager for the unit, Susan Agostini, R. EEG/EP T., CLTM is the EMU unit supervisor and Ralph Parker, RN, BS, is the nursing manager. 

If you are preparing for a stay in the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit, read more important patient information.

To schedule an appointment at the Epilepsy Clinic, or for more information about our Epilepsy Monitoring Unit, please call 602-839-6533.