Updated: 1/12/2009 8:30:40 PM
The recent death of John Travolta's son, Jett, has brought a lot of attention to seizures and epilepsy.
One percent of Americans, 3 million people, suffer from epilepsy.
And their lives are about to be dramatically changed by scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
For 15 years, Dr. Lee Hively has been working on "SeizAlert", a seizure-detecting device that resembles a common PDA.
"It allows us to analyze scalp brain waves and give us up to 4.5 hours' forewarning of that event," he said.
With the help of partner Kara Kruse, he's now able to help patients predict the previously unpredictable.
"The whole uncertainty of epilepsy is huge for patients. They're climbing on a ladder, they're swimming in a pool, they're driving a vehicle, and they have one of these events and they don't have a recourse at that point. If they had a forewarning, they could stop the dangerous activity," he said.
The warning can give patients an independence Kruse herself wishes she'd had.
Though she's a scientist today, she was once a teenager, sidelined by seizures. When she was 15, her parents found her on the floor, suffering from an apparently seizure.
"I had to quit all of my swimming activities. I couldn't get a driver's license like all the other kids. Personally, I know what it's like to have my life interrupted, because they think I have a seizure," Kruse said.
The device can send information digitally to doctors.
Its electrodes are small enough to fit under a headband, sparing patients from bulky helmets currently used for protection.
"They can just go and lay down and have them (seizures) instead of falling down and hurting something," Dr. Hively said.
"If I had had this kind of technology, it may not have interrupted my life as much as it did when I was a teenager," Kruse said.
Dr. Hively says once they secure a commercial backer for SeizAlert, the product could be available within 2 years.
