September 19, 2022 Hydrocephalus At 34 years old, Jamie Wright is on her way to becoming a neurologist who treats adult patients with hydrocephalus. Her patients will one day learn that Wright understands their condition all too well, because she too has been diagnosed with hydrocephalus. Read her story here. It hasn’t been an easy road. Wright suffers from chronic headaches, has been diagnosed with slit ventricle syndrome and has had 17 brain surgeries. She knows she’ll be dependent on her shunt for the rest of her life. And yet that doesn’t dampen her spirit. To date, she’s earned her Ph ..read more

September 12, 2022 Hydrocephalus Innovations A woman initially ignored her slowly worsening cognitive, gait and balance problems, in denial that something was wrong. She would occasionally stumble over sidewalks and drag her feet when she walked. One day, her son noticed her erratic walking patterns and urged her to seek help. That’s when she was diagnosed with normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH). While gait disorders are one of the most prominent symptoms of NPH, it can be difficult to identify patients’ natural walking characteristics because controlled testing environments may subject pa ..read more

August 10, 2022 Hydrocephalus “With invisible illnesses, it’s easy for others to doubt your pain,” writes one adult diagnosed with hydrocephalus. At age 23, she began experiencing consistent dull headaches, pain and pressure behind her eyes. Thinking it was her worsening eyesight, she tried getting glasses, but her symptoms persisted. A doctor later told her that “headaches are the most common thing I treat for women of your age.” But she knew it had to be more than that. After months of self-advocation, she was finally diagnosed with obstructive hydrocephalus and had surgery a few weeks la ..read more

January 6, 2022 Hydrocephalus Neurosurgery Video According to the Hydrocephalus Association, approximately one million Americans live with some type of hydrocephalus, which disrupts the balance of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) production and absorption, causing CSF to build up inside the brain. Certas® Plus Programmable Valves are implantable devices that can be set to different performance settings for intraventricular pressure and drainage of CSF. These performance settings can be set preoperatively and can also be noninvasively changed post-implantation by using the Certas® Plus Tool Kits. I ..read more

September 28, 2021 Hydrocephalus Neurosurgery In 1965, normal pressure hydrocephalus was described as a treatable form of dementia presenting with gait disturbance, urinary incontinence and ventriculomegaly as well as normal cerebrospinal fluid pressure. Yet even now, over 50 years later, the cause of the most common type, idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus (iNPH), remains a mystery. It is also difficult to predict which iNPH patients may derive the best clinical benefit from shunt surgery as outcomes vary greatly in literature. In order to find better guidance on treatment of this p ..read more

June 8, 2021 Hydrocephalus Hydrocephalus is the medical term for a condition that is commonly called “water on the brain.” It is a combination of the Greek word “hydro,” which means water and “cephal” which means head. But the liquid involved in hydrocephalus is not really water at all, it is cerebrospinal fluid or CSF. Hydrocephalus occurs when the delicate balance of CSF production and absorption is disrupted, and CSF builds up within cavities called ventricles inside the brain. This build-up of CSF causes the brain to swell, and for pressure to increase inside the skull, resulting in pot ..read more

May 13, 2021 Hydrocephalus Normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH), a brain disorder caused by the build-up of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in the ventricles of the brain, can cause a myriad of symptoms. Some, such as forgetfulness, difficultly walking, and bladder control, resemble those of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, which can lead to misdiagnosis or written off as normal aging. Likewise, NPH can also cause psychiatric and emotional changes that may prove challenging for both patient and caregivers. NPH can be classified as idiopathic NPH (iNPH), typically affecting those over age 55 w ..read more

March 5, 2021 Hydrocephalus Neurocritical Care Neurosurgery External ventricular drainage, one of the most used procedures in neurological care, has lifesaving potential in a wide variety of brain injuries, from subarachnoid hemorrhage to traumatic brain injuries and bacterial meningitis. Almost three hundred years ago, pioneering surgeons began applying the properties of fluid dynamics to cases of hydrocephalus. Over the past few decades, there have been ground-breaking innovations in ventriculostomy catheters. Medical device technology has come so far in preventing occlusion and infectio ..read more

March 4, 2021 Hydrocephalus Neurocritical Care Placing an external ventricular drain (EVD) is both a routine as well as critical procedure in neurocritical care. Even with many recent innovations in the procedure and tools, studies have shown that there’s a high likelihood that an EVD catheter will become occluded at some point with either a temporary or permanent obstruction that complicates intracranial pressure. Not only do EVD occlusions put an extra burden of care on the patient’s team to address the clog in a timely manner – as short as 8 min with pediatric patients – but the necessa ..read more

March 4, 2021 Hydrocephalus Neurocritical Care An elderly patient presents with confusion and forgetfulness, common symptoms of old age. But upon further examination, the patient describes bouts of incontinence and has difficulty walking. She could be suffering from Alzheimer’s disease…or it could be idiopathic Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (iNPH), a brain disorder that goes largely undiagnosed. In fact, more than 700,000 Americans have NPH, according to estimates by the Hydrocephalus Association, but fewer than 20% receive a correct diagnosis. NPH can either be categorized as idiopathic N ..read more