A Calgary doctor is looking for a better way to treat babies with a severe form of epilepsy.

Epilepsy is a behavioral disorder that is associated with abnormal electrical cerebral activity and without treatment, the disease can be devastating.

Clinton is just 11 months old and is undergoing steroid treatment for a type of infant epilepsy called infantile spasms or West Syndrome.

“West Syndrome is one specific type. We’d like to call it one of the catastrophic epilepsies because it can be associated with poor neuro developmental outcome in the long term,” said Dr. Morris Scantlebury, Neurologist Alberta Children’s Hospital,

“We got in pretty quickly to the children’s hospital and we actually knew what it was before we got here because we had done so much research and were reading about it.” said Tammy Mayer, Clinton’s mom.

Clinton is on his second round of treatment and the goal is get his seizures under control.

“Once we make the diagnosis, we treat right away. But we only have two medications, ACTH and Vigabatrin, both associated with significant, significant side effects and it’s not always effective,” said Dr. Scantlebury.

Dr. Scantlebury says that the current medications are only effective in 60 – 70 percent of patients and that is why they need to do the research to find better ways to treat epilepsy.

If the drug treatment doesn't work, the next step is a Ketogenic diet where 80 percent of the calories come from fat.

It is not clear why the diet, which mimics starvation, prevents seizures in some children.

The kids usually respond to the diet in about two weeks and it is an effective treatment in about 60 percent of patients with intractable epilepsy.

“In about a third of those, 60 percent, you can achieve with the diet, 90 to 100 percent seizure reduction with the Ketogenic diet,” said Dr. Scantlebury. “We know for a long time that Ketogenic diet is effective to treat intractable epilepsies in pediatric populations so we know this but which types? We think all types, but it’s important to figure out which types.”

Researchers say children tolerate the diet very well and that preliminary data is showing that it is an effective non-pharmaceutical treatment for infantile spasms.

Dr. Scantlebury and his team are now looking at how they can tweak the diet to achieve maximum benefits.

(With files from Karen Owen)