Gabriel's Life

In ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy’s, the terrifying malfunction of a child’s shunt is featured. Fifty percent of shunts fail within the first two years of their use, making shunt surgery the “bread and butter” of Neurosurgery. We appreciate Grey’s Anatomy for including hydrocephalus in its story line. Thank you for increasing awareness of this common and very complicated disease.

When a loved one has hydrocephalus–or any other condition–the personal toll and sacrifice needed to adjust can impact relatives as well, but one story of a British teenager shows compassion and determination easily go hand-in-hand. In a story by Sibba Matta, 17-year-old Jessica Sisley demonstrates such a pairing and inspires the belief that one can have it all: tenderness for ill family members and pursuit of academic dreams. Young Sisley heads to the University of York for history and political”

A research team headed by a bioengineering professor at the Unviersity of Illinois at Chicago may soon uncover an alternative way to monitor and maintain brain fluid levels. According to the university, associate professor Andreas Linninger will soon test a new fluid sensor on an animal in order to see if the patented volume device can regulate cerebrospinal fluid in the brain better than the traditional shunt. Linninger recently received a $423,000 grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders”

While world events have continued their chaotic pace and drawn attention to new disasters, elections, or athletics, a determined group of medical workers have continued their own pace in assisting the still, much-needed humanitarian work in Haiti. (Post continues below) Not even a year after its disastrous earthquake, a team of compassionate doctors, nurses and photographers have devoted their time to helping crop relief efforts, treating rampant illnesses and also providing irreplaceable surgeries for hydrocephalus patients. As featured at the”

In a string of news articles posted Wednesday, speculation circled around possibilities that Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga might have hydrocephalus. After massive pressure built on the outside of the prime minister’s head, neurosurgeons in Nairobi drilled a hole in Odinga’s skull to release excess fluid in the skull, a symptom commonly associated with hydrocepahlus. One report from the Press Association said the minister’s doctors did not release details on his exact condition. But, perhaps questioning the leader’s future capacity”

“In the early morning of May 11, Zina and Oleg Savca boarded a flight out of Moldova’s capital, Chisinau. They stopped in Germany, New York and Salt Lake City, battling the language barrier by showing their tickets to strangers, who pointed them to the correct gate.” In a recent article from the Sacramento Bee, writer Matt Kawahara chronicles the 6,000-mile-plus trip one 11-year-old boy and his mother took simply for the chance at a normal, livable life. Since a much-needed”

“I don’t want to see special needs kids falling through the cracks. They don’t belong in the justice of the peace courts.” So said Stephen Walker, Justice of the Peace in San Antonio, Tex. Referring to an unusual case in which a school district is taking the family of a pediatric hydrocephalus patient to court for missing too many days of school, Justice Walker said school officials are out of line and not “doing what is right for the child.””

In its football-focused Fifth Down blog, the popular New York Times featured a comment attached to a recent interview with an ex-Giants receiver who is calling for better helmet safety. This interview rang soundly for another former footballer, George Visger, who played for the San Francisco 49er’s and suffered from nine total shunt surgeries after on-the-field incidents. “Players are so much bigger and faster than when I played in 80 & 81, it’s inevitable they will face the same problems”

A new study from the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) recently tackled the difference in a particular shunt treatment’s effectiveness between adult patients and child congenital hydrocephalus patients. Indirectly responding to patient worries (like this) of shunt over-siphoning their cerebrospinal fluid, three researchers at PGIMER wanted to see how successful antisiphoning devices could be in pediatric patients. In the study, researchers observed 40 total cogenital hydro patients, dividing them into groups: one with valves featuring antisiphon”

As much of the world focuses on Africa for the 2010 World Cup soccer tournament, the small country of Uganda is also grabbing headlines as it ramps up efforts to encourage food enrichment in order to fight some causes of hydrocephalus. A story on AllAfrica.com Thursday reports the possibility that Uganda’s National Bureau of Standards might mandate fortifying the country’s food supply with folic acid. (Gabriel’s Life has published posts on the potential rewards from and various national laws of”