Paraphrasing the Hydrocephalus Association's Teacher's Guide: Physical problems associated with hydrocephalus

 I've been paraphrasing the Hydrocephalus Association's teachers guide so I've gotten to the point where it's the first couple of sections, and information that's a lot more easily found online. So I'm going to keep things shorter, and not try to include as many details. 

 

The first part of the section covers that children with hydrocephalus usually have other medical conditions like Dandy Walker syndrome, spina bifida and cerebral palsy. Other ones that aren't listed that I know of is epilepsy and Chiari malformation. It also covers needing physical therapy and occupational therapy. The part that might not be as well-known is the hydrocephalus association recommending comprehensive development testing, and a neuro-psychological evaluation early on. 

 

I'm not sure how well known it is but CSF can cause vision damage that ranges from very mild vision problems to very severe vision damage, including being legally blind. Of course there's other causes of vision problems, and the HA isn't trying to say this is the only cause. It can also cause eye misalignment problems that can be fixed with surgery. From hearing about personal experiences, eye misalignment issues at very common with at least cerebral palsy as well. 

 

The next sub subject covers precocious puberty which can easily be found online, but I feel like it needs to be covered still. It might be caused by the brain anatomy associated with hydrocephalus affecting the pituitary gland. This is more likely with children that had brain trauma including brain tumors and meningitis.It can also cause behavior that isn't normal at a earlier age. The sections that I decided to skip is shunt revisions, headaches, seizures, and hand/eye coordination. I've covered hand/eye coordination in my blog before, and I plan on writing detailed posts about headaches soon, and I've had someone guest blog for me about barometric pressure headaches before as well. 

 

Next week I'll be covering the introduction to the teacher's guide, and general information. Then posting the links to each of my posts covering the sections. I still plan on writing regularly, but it will be less frequently because I need to do research, and breaks are necessary.

 

 

Source:  https://www.hydroassoc.org/docs/A_Teachers_Guide_to_Hydrocephalus.pdf

The guest blog about barometric pressure headaches: http://timothy-landry.blogspot.com/search/label/Weather