Ventricular Peritoneal Shunt (VPS)
(Bumped to top)
Since Thursday, Mom has experienced increasing cognition difficulty. This is likely due to hydro cephalus, which is a fancy name for having excess cerebro-spinal fluid in your ventricles. The fluid has possibly been accumulating since Mom's shunt was removed - approximately one month ago. She will have a VPS procedure this week, in hopes of curing the problem. Here's how it works:
A shunt will be inserted into her brain. The shunt will not be visible from outside her body. A tube will run from her shunt, through her body, and will empty excess cerebro spinal fluid into her Peritoneal Cavity (her stomach). Scroll to the middle of this web page for info and pictures about VPS.
Side effects include maybe a 25% chance the shunt will become plugged up and blocked. I assume, in that case, the shunt can be replaced. Blockage is more likely to occur in the initial weeks after VPS implantation. Sometimes, after a couple of years, during a routine examination, a shunt is found to be blocked. In this case, where the patient has shown no external symptoms of a problem, the patient's body will have been removing sufficient amounts of cerebro spinal fluid on it's own. This is another example of the body healing itself - on it's own schedule.Other side effects include about a 5% chance of infection, and about at 10% chance the shunt will cause further bleeding in the brain, i.e. subdural hematoma.
It's not a sure thing that her cognition problem is due to hydro cephalus. However, Doctors cannot find another problem. Doctors do believe they see increasing size in her ventricles, which would indicate accumulating cerebro spinal fluid. Hopefully, the shunt will reduce ventricle size, and return cognition to where it was before. I'll update, if and when the surgery occurs.
Since Thursday, Mom has experienced increasing cognition difficulty. This is likely due to hydro cephalus, which is a fancy name for having excess cerebro-spinal fluid in your ventricles. The fluid has possibly been accumulating since Mom's shunt was removed - approximately one month ago. She will have a VPS procedure this week, in hopes of curing the problem. Here's how it works:
A shunt will be inserted into her brain. The shunt will not be visible from outside her body. A tube will run from her shunt, through her body, and will empty excess cerebro spinal fluid into her Peritoneal Cavity (her stomach). Scroll to the middle of this web page for info and pictures about VPS.
Side effects include maybe a 25% chance the shunt will become plugged up and blocked. I assume, in that case, the shunt can be replaced. Blockage is more likely to occur in the initial weeks after VPS implantation. Sometimes, after a couple of years, during a routine examination, a shunt is found to be blocked. In this case, where the patient has shown no external symptoms of a problem, the patient's body will have been removing sufficient amounts of cerebro spinal fluid on it's own. This is another example of the body healing itself - on it's own schedule.Other side effects include about a 5% chance of infection, and about at 10% chance the shunt will cause further bleeding in the brain, i.e. subdural hematoma.
It's not a sure thing that her cognition problem is due to hydro cephalus. However, Doctors cannot find another problem. Doctors do believe they see increasing size in her ventricles, which would indicate accumulating cerebro spinal fluid. Hopefully, the shunt will reduce ventricle size, and return cognition to where it was before. I'll update, if and when the surgery occurs.
posted by gcotharn at 10:09 AM
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