Patients who come to Johns Hopkins for epilepsy surgery sometimes require a prequel to their treatment: a multiday stint in the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit. There, they fill their time with typical hospital stay activities—eating, sleeping, reading, and watching TV—while electrodes laid on the surfaces of their brain record electrical activity 24 hours a day to help locate the origin of their seizures.
Now, while they wait to get help with their seizures, some of these patients have taken an opportunity to help …