Normal pressure hydrocephalus, dementia

Brettschneider, J., el al. (2004). Meningeal derived cerebrospinal fluid proteins in different forms of dementia is a meningopathy involved in normal pressure hydrocephalus J. Neurot Neurosurg. Psychiatry 75, 1614-16. 

Table 10.4 lists the various medications that can be stopped and medical illnesses that can be treated to reverse dementia. In some cases, such as hypothyroidism or dehydration, the reversal can be complete. More often, the dementia is only partially reversed or its further progression is halted. Examples of these partial improvements include normal pressure hydrocephalus and vitamin B12 deficiency. 

To deal with the different disorders included in this section would be excessive therefore, we focus on dementia in Alzheimer s disease (AD]. Nevertheless, the less specific treatment options for AD are also complementary options to the usual treatment approaches for other forms of dementia or cognitive deficits in which etiological or more specific treatments may be useful (e.g., dementia in normal pressure hydrocephalus). 

Other disorders that may kill cholinergic and other neurons, thus leading to memory loss. Vascular dementia, formerly multi-infarct dementia, is characterized by dementia that classically has a more stepwise downhill course as compared with Alzheimer s disease, which has a more smoothly progressive downhill course. Multi-infact dementia is caused by multiple strokes, which damage the brain sufficiently to cause dementia and often cause focal neurological signs and symptoms as well. Normal pressure hydrocephalus can cause dementia from dilated cerebral ventricles. Creutzfeldt-... 

In addition, other possible causes of dementia also need to be excluded, especially the treatable forms of cognitive impairment, such as that due to depression, chronic drug intoxication, chronic central nervous system infection, thyroid disease, vitamin deficiencies (i.e.. Bn and thiamine), central nervous system angitis, and normal-pressure hydrocephalus (Bird, 2008). Individuals who do not meet these criteria but have short-term memory loss and have only minimal impairment in other cognitive abilities and are not functionally impaired at work or at home are considered to have mild cognitive impairment (Petersen et al., 2001). 

Dementia due to other general medical condition (e.g, normal-pressure hydrocephalus, hypothyroidism, brain tumor, vitamin B12 deficiency, intracranial radiation)... 

Mixed Alzheimer s and vascular dementia Normal pressure hydrocephalus... 

Fig. 6.8 Statistical Images showing the F- FDGimagesof glucose utilization in the brains of patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) mild dementia of Alzheimertype (MID) and normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH).

Many other possible causes of dialysis dementia have been proposed. These inclnde other trace element contaminants, normal pressure hydrocephalus, slow virus infection of the central nervous system, and regional alterations in cerebral blood flow (Arieff, 1990). Slow virus infection of the nervous system is a possible etiology for dialysis dementia. The clinical manifestations resemble those of other slow virus infections, such as Kuru or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (Selkoe, 1978 4714 Gajdusek, 1985 1662). 

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