Hydrocephalus: A Guide for Patients, Families & Friends

by Chuck Toporek and Kellie Robinson

Book Overview

Hydrocephalus, often referred to as "water on the brain," is a potentially life-threatening condition that affects one in a thousand babies born in the U.S. Hydrocephalus is now generally treated with surgical placement of a shunt system that drains excess fluid around the brain to another part of the body where it can be absorbed.As the child grows, shunt revision surgeries are often necessary. Adults with hydrocephalus can be prone to shunt failures...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 156592410X
• ISBN13: 9781565924109
• Release Date: March 1999
• Publisher: Patient Center Guides
• Length: 379 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Great Book

I've had Hydrocephalus for 27 years, all my life. Until recently I thought I completly understood my condation. When I picked up this book, I found there was a lot more to it. It helps me to know what is going on inside my brain and helps me to know that I am not the only one. If you don't have Hydrocephalus, or know someone with it, you can't understand what it'sd like and the sheer frustration one who has it goes through. I hope other people pick up this book to gain an understaning of what those who have it go through on a day by day basis.

I can begin to understand this condition.

In reading this book, I came to understand what a person with this condition must endure. Both the medical descriptions and the personal experiences of patients helped me to "visualize" what I had been hearing about for the past eleven years, but had not fully grasped. I do not have hydrocephalus, but in reading this book, I now know how I can or cannot help friends and family with the condition.Most interesting to me were the concrete, straighforward scientific explanations. This book is a must for those of us who are not medically trained but still have a need to research how the brain works and how hydrocephalus affects patients.Thank you to the authors of this book and to those who contributed to enlightening the puplic about this condition.

This book is Gold, a real Treasure

I picked up this book one morning and did not stop reading until that evening when I was finished. It was so easy to read and so informative that I could not put it down. Since then it has helped me with many decisions in dealing with my daughters medical situation. This book explains hydrocephalus completely and clearly while giving suggestions about many aspects of receiving the best medical care possible including how to talk to your neurosurgeons, what symptoms to watch for and how your medical system affects the kind of care you can expect. The sections on hospitalizations, shunt revisions and side effects offered information that I had not received anywhere else. I also made many new connections with others dealing with this condition through the appendixes in this book. Buy this book and be informed! I am now passing it around to all my family members and friends so that they can finally understand what hydrocephalus is all about. I will continue to treasure this resource in the years to come as a reference and means of support when it is most needed.