BOSTON -- Joan Connor, 58, of Weymouth, has seven grandchildren.

“I love to hold them,” she said. But until recently, Connor didn’t feel safe holding the babies, never knowing when an epileptic seizure might strike.

“I couldn't do anything because I was so afraid that something might happen.” A variety of medications Connor has tried over the past 35 years have not worked, but she now has new confidence and freedom thanks to a tiny device.

VIDEO: Device Helps Stop Seizures Before They Begin

In August, 2007, Connor became the first patient in the United States to be surgically implanted with the Demipulse 103, the newest generation of vagus nerve stimulators.

Almost instantly, the number of seizures she endured fell from approximately 20 to two per month.

Dr. Georgia Montouris is a neurologist who specializes in treating people with epilepsy. She is also the doctor who suggested Demipulse might help Joan.

It’s implanted near a patient’s collarbone, with leads that are coiled around the left vagus nerve. Doctors program an external controller, which instructs the Demipulse to send electric signals to a person’s brain at a specific strength and at specific intervals.

“This sends electrical impulses via the vagus nerve to the connections the vagus nerve has in the brain, with the anticipation of aborting an electrical surge, which is essentially the electrical activity in a seizure. This goes on 24/7,” Montouris said.

Montouris said a seizure is “an electrical storm in the brain,” and that the Demipulse 103 and other vagus nerve stimulators use similar electric currents to prevent seizures, or stop them in their tracks.

Said Connor, “If I'm going to have one, and I feel it coming on, I can just swipe it with the control.”

Montouris said a common misconception is that people are born with epilepsy, but she said most new diagnoses are in children under age 10, and in adults over age 60. In that older group, seizures mostly come without warning, and the signs are subtle.

In older patients, Montouris said, “there's an alteration of awareness. The patient sort of zones out, if you will. So the patient is often misdiagnosed as either being demented or having some type of psychiatric problem.”

The electrical stimulation gives Connor a tingly feeling in her neck, and occasionally makes her voice hoarse. The side effects are small prices to pay, she said, for her newfound freedom.

“If somebody calls me and asks me to go to the store with them, or something, I just grab the jacket and go now. Before, I wouldn't. Where was it 30 years ago?” Connor said.