Latest news with #ScarlettPaige
The Age
27-04-2025
- Health
- The Age
Brainstorm: Australian inventor may have key to predicting epilepsy seizures
Scarlett Paige had the world at her feet. School was over. The 18-year-old was going to enjoy the waning days of her senior year with friends, then fly to America, where she was going to work as an au pair. A clear path stretched ahead. She controlled her destiny. And then she couldn't control her mouth. She was at the supermarket when her mouth started talking by itself. 'Where am I?' she heard herself say. 'What time is it?' The message repeated over and over. She heard people talk but couldn't respond. 'Just out of the blue, no warning, bang,' says Paige. The episodes – where her brain seemed to elude her control – continued for a terrifying six months. Worse, her doctors were sceptical. Was anything wrong, or was it just in her head? Paige was, eventually, diagnosed with epilepsy, a short-circuiting of the brain that causes seizures. But her struggle to get a diagnosis highlights a problem for patients and their doctors: it is hard to diagnose and treat a disease that seems to strike randomly. An Australian inventor hopes to change that. Professor Mark Cook and his team have invented a tiny cable stitched with electrodes they call the Minder that can slip beneath the scalp and monitor the brain – providing, for the first time, real-time seizure tracking. The device was approved by the United States medical regulator on Monday, and is now part of a major clinical trial. Researchers are expecting it and similar devices to herald a 'sea change' in how epilepsy is treated.
Sydney Morning Herald
27-04-2025
- Health
- Sydney Morning Herald
Brainstorm: Australian inventor may have key to predicting epilepsy seizures
Scarlett Paige had the world at her feet. School was over. The 18-year-old was going to enjoy the waning days of her senior year with friends, then fly to America, where she was going to work as an au pair. A clear path stretched ahead. She controlled her destiny. And then she couldn't control her mouth. She was at the supermarket when her mouth started talking by itself. 'Where am I?' she heard herself say. 'What time is it?' The message repeated over and over. She heard people talk but couldn't respond. 'Just out of the blue, no warning, bang,' says Paige. The episodes – where her brain seemed to elude her control – continued for a terrifying six months. Worse, her doctors were sceptical. Was anything wrong, or was it just in her head? Paige was, eventually, diagnosed with epilepsy, a short-circuiting of the brain that causes seizures. But her struggle to get a diagnosis highlights a problem for patients and their doctors: it is hard to diagnose and treat a disease that seems to strike randomly. An Australian inventor hopes to change that. Professor Mark Cook and his team have invented a tiny cable stitched with electrodes they call the Minder that can slip beneath the scalp and monitor the brain – providing, for the first time, real-time seizure tracking. The device was approved by the United States medical regulator on Monday, and is now part of a major clinical trial. Researchers are expecting it and similar devices to herald a 'sea change' in how epilepsy is treated.
