Adult quality of life in congenital hydrocephalus operated cases. A twenty years retrospective study

Abstract

Congenital hydrocephalus is a health problem in many countries and in Romania the pediatric neurosurgical department of the Emergency Hospital “Bagdasar-Arseni” has a large number of such patients. This is a retrospective study and it includes the patients with congenital hydrocephalus operated between 1992 and 2012 in the pediatric neurosurgical department of the Emergency Hospital “Bagdasar-Arseni”. The functional outcome was assessed using Karnofsky Performance Scale, Hydrocephalus Outcome Questionnaire and Glasgow outcome scale. The total number of the patients was 372, with a predominance of boys (212 boys versus 160 girls) and at the time of our study 168 patients were over 16 years old. Functional outcome of the children over 16 years old assessed using Karnofsky Performance Scale, showed that 73 patients were above 80 and leading independent lives, and 95 were less than 80 points. The results would be better if all these patients would benefit from schooling for children with special needs.

Clinical study and management of hydrocephalus in children

“…Similar type of presentation is seen in various other studies also. [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] Commonest cause of hydrocephalus in our study is Aqueductal stenosis (40%) followed by Arnold Chiari type 2 malformation (23.33%) with meningomyelocele. Similar aetiology is seen in various other studies also.…”

“…Data from each patient collected and tabulated using microsoft excel. All the statistical analysis was carried out by SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) version 16…”