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Kindle Edition
Category:
Reference
Publisher: Surgeonwriter
ISBN-10: B00BS3EFJK
Type: Non-Fiction
Pages: 40
Copyright: 3/10/2013
If you or a loved one suffers from hydrocephalus, this book is a must read of when, what, & why...
This is a 7,000 word monograph on hydrocephalus, written by a neurosurgeon for the lay patient and his/her family. This is an essential guide for those who deal with hydrocephalus, a chronic condition in which spinal fluid builds up in the head and does not circulate property. Although the condition can be life-threatening & requires life-long observation, the treatment is generally straight forward and not onerous on a daily basis. The monograph includes information about vp shunts, as well as a mother's companion and answers to common questions and scenarios.
Excerpt
What is Hydrocephalus?
Loosely speaking, hydrocephalus is an abnormal build-up of spinal fluid within the head. This can happen for a number of different reasons. I will define hydrocephalus more fully in a moment, and we will look at a number of different ways it can come about, but first a quick look inside the box.
A Closed Box
The skull is, for all its complexity, essentially nothing more than a container, a closed box. Clinically speaking, that is looking at it from the neurosurgeon’s point of view, it has only three important openings: the paired openings for the eyes and a third opening through which the spinal cord exits at the base of the skull.
The two openings for the eyes allow the optic nerves to pass thru the skull to the eyeballs themselves. The optic nerves are actually not nerves at all, but true extensions of the brain itself—which makes them the only part of the brain visible from outside the body under normal circumstances. Every time you go to the doctor and he looks in your eyes with that bright light (an ophthalmoscope), you are having your brain examined. What he or she is actually looking for is the shape and color of the optic nerve head, that is, that portion of the nerve just as it enters the eye. Pressure inside the head, we will talk about this below, gives the nerve head a different appearance depending on whether it is high or low, normal or abnormal, old or new, etc. That is, the pressure inside the head is propagated along the nerve and causes visible changes in the eye when that pressure is abnormal.
So, the skull is, for our purposes, a closed box. One important caveat: a closed box has a fixed volume (think of your dishwasher—you can only fit so much inside it). The skull cannot expand. That is, there is only a certain amount of space inside the skull.
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