Treatment considerations: role of vagus nerve stimulator

Epilepsy is considerably more common in individuals with mental retardation and developmental delays than in the general population. Compared with other groups with epilepsy, these individuals have higher seizure burdens, more often experience multiple seizure types, and more frequently have seizures that are medically refractory. The majority of these patients with refractory epilepsy will not have a surgically amenable epilepsy syndrome. For these individuals, the vagus nerve stimulator offers the potential for improved seizure control, abortive treatment of seizures, and medication reduction, which may lead to greater independence and other improvements in quality of life.