Freeman advocated for the use of two treatments for pediatric epilepsy that had gone unused for decades : the ketogenic diet and the hemispherectomy.
22.
A study in 2007 indicated the long-term efficacy of anatomic hemispherectomy in carefully selected adults, with seizure control sustainable over multiple decades.
23.
The functional hemispherectomy can achieve long-term seizure freedom in over 80 % of patients however often at the price of hemiplegia and hemianopsy.
24.
Anatomical hemispherectomy decreases the likelihood that seizures will return, as there is no longer any part of the identified epileptic brain area left to cause seizures.
25.
The Brain Recovery Project was formed in 2011 to fund research and establish rehabilitation protocols to help children who have had hemispherectomy surgery reach their full potential.
26.
Genie also did very well at identifying rhymes, both tasks that adult split-brain and left hemispherectomy patients had previously been recorded performing well on.
27.
If a functional hemispherectomy is chosen over an anatomical hemispherectomy, it is likely because it allows for less blood loss and greater chance of resilience for the patient.
28.
If a functional hemispherectomy is chosen over an anatomical hemispherectomy, it is likely because it allows for less blood loss and greater chance of resilience for the patient.
29.
In 2012, a case study following 30 individuals having undergone some form of hemispherectomy in adulthood found that 81 % of individuals were seizure free post-procedure.
30.
Such an extreme level of asymmetry on these tests had previously only been documented in patients with either split-brain or who had undergone a hemispherectomy as an adult.
