Neurological Care Centre

We assess and follow children and youth with various acute or chronic neurological disorders that do not require a specific subspecialty clinic.

The Angelman Syndrome Clinic is a collaboration between the Neurology and Medical Psychology Departments at BC Children’s Hospital. We serve children and youth with Angelman syndrome across the province to support their overall health and development. We focus on supporting families and patients around epilepsy, sleep, learning and behaviour. We also give them opportunities to participate in our research program. 

We offer telehealth appointments from hospital or home, and community outreach appointments whenever possible. We encourage families to connect with the Canadian Angelman Syndrome Society.

This provincial program supports children and youth with high-impact brain disorders such as epilepsy, brain tumours, strokes and cerebrovascular disorders.

We use functional MRI brain mapping to enhance the precision of image-guided neurological and neurosurgical care. This enables less invasive, more personalized interventions. This can reduce the risk of impairing important brain functions.

The Neurology and Neurosurgery Clinics refer patients to the program who have:

• Treatment-resistant epilepsy, for epilepsy surgery planning
• Low-grade brain tumours, for electively planned resection
• Arteriovenous malformations, moyamoya disease and other cerebral vascular disorders associated with strokes

Your BC Children's Hospital pediatric neurologists or neurosurgeons will advise whether they recommend a referral. Find out more about the BC Children’s Hospital MRI Research Facility on the BC Children's Research Institute website.

We assess and follow children and youth with epilepsy, especially those with more complex needs.

The Comprehensive Epilepsy Clinic sees children with tuberous sclerosis, Dravet syndrome, Rett syndrome and Angelman syndrome. The program also includes epilepsy genomics.

We aim to improve seizures and the quality of life of children and youth with medically resistant epilepsy, through surgical intervention.

A team including epileptologists, neurosurgeons, epilepsy nurse clinicians, neuropsychologists, neurophysiologists, neuroradiologists, functional brain-mapping experts and geneticists guides the assessment and care. The surgical procedures we offer include:

• Stereotactic electroencephalograms (SEEG)
• Intraoperative electrocorticography (ECOG)
• Temporal and extratemporal cortical resections
• Hemispheric procedures
• Corpus callosotomy
• Neuromodulation (specifically vagal nerve stimulation (VNS))

We also actively participate in education, advocacy and research initiatives.

We assess and monitor patients with tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC). This multisystem neurogenetic disorder is associated with the development of tumours in multiple organs. We provide care to patients, including access to new therapies. 

We encourage families to connect with other families with TSC through organizations like Tuberous Sclerosis Canada and TSC Alliances.

This program performs and interprets neurodiagnostic procedures such as electroencephalograms (EEGs) and electromyography (EMG) for both inpatients (patients staying in the hospital) and outpatients.

For inpatients, this includes long-term video EEG monitoring in the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit (EMU) and other hospital units; and continuous EEG monitoring in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) and the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at BC Women's Hospital + Health Centre. 

More information on the services offered at this clinic is available on the Diagnostic Neurophysiology Laboratory web page.

This clinic supports children and youth with a diagnosis of Dravet syndrome. This rare genetic disorder causes epilepsy and developmental delays.

We provide clinical care through medications and dietary therapies, access to cutting-edge therapies, and opportunities for involvement in clinical research.

Families can connect with other parents of children and youth with Dravet syndrome through organizations like the Dravet Syndrome Foundation or Dravet Canada.

At BC Children's Hospital, we use ketogenic diets to treat seizures that have not been controlled with medications. This medical prescription diet is very high in fat, moderate in protein, and very low in carbohydrate.

All ketogenic diets require careful medical supervision and direction from a specially trained physician and dietitian. Children must not start this diet without supervision.

We offer telehealth and community outreach appointments to patients and families across BC and Yukon.

We provide consultations in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at BC Women's Hospital + Health Centre for critically ill infants with brain injury and neurological disorders. We provide ongoing neurological and neurodevelopmental follow-up of these infants in the Neonatal Neurology Clinic or in the combined Neurology/Neonatal Follow-up Clinic.

We also provide fetal neurology consultations for individuals and families across the province. 

We provide consultation, treatment and ongoing care for children and youth across BC and Yukon who have neuromuscular disorders. These disorders may be acquired or genetic. We run several multidisciplinary clinics, and annual transition workshops for youth transitioning to adult services.

This program provides evaluations for patients who have symptoms suggestive of an underlying genetic disorder. We focus on identifying genetic causes of neurological conditions including epilepsy, movement disorders, spasticity and ataxia. We also identify potential targeted treatments. 

We provide care to patients with tumours arising from the nervous system, for both benign and malignant conditions.

This clinic combines clinical expertise from Neurology and Rheumatology to provide consultation and management for patients with rare neuroinflammatory disorders. These may include:

• Autoimmune encephalitis
• Pediatric onset multiple sclerosis
• Myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein antibody-associated disease (MOGAD)

The Rett Syndrome Clinic is a collaboration between Neurology and Biochemical Genetics. We serve children and youth across the province with Rett syndrome, to support their overall health and development. 

We focus on issues around epilepsy, movement disorders, sleep, gastroenterology problems, autonomic symptoms, learning and behaviour. We provide families with tools to help their loved ones thrive in their community. We give families opportunities to participate in our collaborative, active research program.

This program diagnoses, treats and supports children and youth with cerebrovascular diseases. These are diseases that affect the blood vessels in the brain and spinal cord.

We serve children across the province with sleep problems. We provide both clinical assessments and objective testing, including:

• Overnight sleep studies (including polysomnographies and polysomnograms)
• Multiple sleep latency tests (MSLT)
• Home oximetry
• Actigraphy

You can find more information on the Respiratory Medicine Clinic page.