Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus

[flowerlong]

My mom is looking at possible shunt surgery.Heard where the odds of it being sucessfull are not very good.Any one know of the success rate for this surgery and who might be a good surgeon to get in touch with?

[judyej]

In 1982 my mother was diagnosed with NPH in Washington, DC. We used Dr. A. Ommayah who actually developed the shunt that was used at that time. He has since passed away which distresses me because we are very sure that was what my grandmother died of a number of years and I worry about myself. I am female and 68. I did read just yesterday that Johns Hopkins now has a NPH clinic. I plan on making an appointment there. When my mother had the shunt implanted it was as though the sky had opened. She was her old self and recovered very fast. Unfortuantly, they lived in KY and about a year later the shunt malfunctioned, which we had expected, and had been told it could be re-adjusted. The dr. who saw her there knew nothing about NPH and did a test measuring her ICP and did not draw the fluid off first and literally blew her brain out. She lingered for 6 months. She died from a medical mistake and not the NPH directly. I will have to say that we had 11/2 years of a great time with her and she never felt anything so it was worth it. Dr. Ommayah was the best. God directed us to him. As an FYI and coincedence, one of my daughters developed menningitis her senior year of college while home on winter break and I called him right away. He started treatment just in time and she is fine with 2 children so we owe him an large debt.
The Hopkins Clinic will be the way I will go but we live only 25 miles from there.