Patients with hydrocephalic syndrome: how to alleviate the fate?

The disease with hydrocephalic syndrome is quite frequent in neurology, but this term is common only among specialists from the countries of the former CIS. Usually this diagnosis is given to newborns suffering from perinatal encephalopathy. The disease manifests itself in the excessive accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid (cerebrospinal fluid) under the membranes of the brain and in its ventricles. This is due to the presence of any obstacle to its outflow or due to other disorders that are associated with the reverse absorption of the CSF. With increased intracranial pressure, newborns develop hypertensive-hydrocephalic syndrome. His clinical picture is much more complicated.

Causes

The main causes of the disease with hydrocephalic syndrome include disorders in the development of the brain, neuroinfections, problems during pregnancy, negative factors during labor, cerebral hemorrhage, intrauterine infections, cerebral ischemia or hypoxia, and prematurity of the fetus.

Complexity of diagnosis

Unfortunately, modern medicine has not yet developed methods for detecting the disease with hydrocephalic syndrome. The therapy is also not at a sufficient level. There are cases when this diagnosis can be made without sufficient grounds and is erroneous.

How to determine?

The presence of some signs will allow to determine whether a newborn child has a hydrocephalic syndrome. He may be disturbed by vomiting and convulsions, he does not suck well, often crying piercingly. Also the baby can be overly sleepy, he can have an increase in the size of the head, swelling of the fontanelle and lack of pulsation in it, an expansion of the blood vessels of the head. After a year, there are other signs, for example, keeping the head in a fixed position to the child is given with difficulty. Headaches may occur , accompanied by vomiting. When examining the fundus, stagnant discs of the optic nerves are revealed . The child languishes, is inactive, apathetic. If the listed symptoms are observed, the baby should be urgently hospitalized.

Without panic

It should be remembered that for children there are periodic fluctuations in blood pressure and blood pressure. If we talk about older persons, then these fluctuations with very low probability may be symptoms - hydrocephalic syndrome in adults, as a rule, does not develop. In addition, nausea, frequent headaches, dizziness may indicate the presence of infectious diseases, metabolic disorders or brain work. The increased size of the head, too, is not always a sign of hydrocephalic syndrome - the cause may be genetics.

Treatment

Therapy is carried out with drugs aimed at increasing the outflow and reducing the production of cerebrospinal fluid. When there is a lack of drug treatment, a neurosurgical operation is prescribed, consisting in shunting the ventricles of the brain.