Epilepsy Monitoring Unit (EMU)

Not all seizures are easily diagnosed or understood. Sometimes, outpatient epilepsy testing isn’t enough to capture the information your doctor needs to create an effective treatment plan for managing epilepsy. 

If this happens, our doctors may recommend inpatient testing in the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit (EMU) in the Pavilion at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Our EMU provides extended, multi-day epilepsy monitoring that gets you and your care team the answers you need for the most effective management of epilepsy. 

What to expect when you visit our Epilepsy Monitoring Unit 

The Epilepsy Monitoring Unit at Penn Medicine is an inpatient testing center that provides continuous 24-hour electroencephalography (EEG) with video monitoring. This combined information allows our specialists from the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center to see your movements and behavior before, during, and after an epileptic seizure. 

Before your stay you may be weaned off seizure medications. This will allow our team to observe and record your seizures. Most people stay in the EMU for five or six days, but the exact length depends on your symptoms and needs. 

When you arrive at the EMU, a technician will attach electrodes to your head that detect electrical activity in your brain. The electrodes are attached to a computer that measures changes in electrical activity during your stay. 

Our epilepsy care team may recommend stereotactic EEG (sEEG) for some patients. This monitoring involves placing EEG electrodes directly into the brain to record seizures and brain activity. 

In the EMU, staff is present round-the-clock, including specially trained doctors, nurses, and technologists. If you have a seizure, they are there immediately to help and keep you safe. 

The information we record during your stay helps us understand how many and what kind of seizures you have and where they start in the brain. With this knowledge, our specialists can devise more targeted treatment plans, particularly for epilepsy that is more difficult to control. 

Why choose Penn Medicine’s EMU? 

Our EMU is a 12-bed inpatient unit designed to provide the most advanced EEG and video monitoring. Because patients typically stay with us for up to a week, we’ve created a safe and comfortable space that makes the experience of epilepsy diagnosis as pleasant as possible. 

People who choose us for EMU neurology testing find: 

• Comfort: Every private room is large and spacious, so people staying in the EMU have space to move around, and room for friends and family to visit. All rooms have interactive televisions that accept personal devices for video games and streaming. The screens also automatically identify care team members and remind patients of their daily appointment schedules and treatment goals. 
• Safety: Before your stay in the EMU, our team provides detailed information about how to prepare and what to expect during your time with us. People in the EMU typically stop taking anti-seizure medication to promote seizure activity for monitoring. To keep you safe, every room in the EMU has fall-resistant flooring to prevent injuries. 
• A specialized team: Every member of the EMU team has specialized training in this type of epilepsy monitoring. An on-site physician, an epilepsy-trained nurse, and a technologist monitor each patient 24 hours a day. The technologist receives special training to quickly recognize when a seizure is happening. 
• Advanced monitoring: Every EMU room contains at least two cameras with night-vision capabilities that record high-definition video footage. This allows us to capture any seizure activity from multiple angles. If our technologist observes someone having a seizure, they immediately activate a neurological assessment (ictal exam) via the in-room interactive TV while the epilepsy nurse gets to the room. This advanced system allows us to collect critical seizure data 10 to 15 seconds sooner than most facilities. 

Advanced research and clinical trials to improve epilepsy care outcomes 

Penn Medicine’s EMU is an important part of our pioneering efforts in epilepsy research and clinical trials for patients with epilepsy and seizure disorders. In addition to providing high-level patient care, the EMU is an important collaborator with research laboratories in Penn’s academic, bioengineering, and clinical network. 

All surgical EMU patients have the option to allow us to store data from their EMU testing for use in research. For privacy, we remove all personal information from the data. 

Access to these large stores of information advances the understanding of drug-resistant epilepsy and contributes to our scientists’ development of better treatments. It also gives critical data to researchers studying other areas of neuroscience, such as consciousness and the effects of sensory input on the brain.