QUESTION: NPH vs ECH…same thing or different?

[HorseHappy]

My father was very recently diagnosed with Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (NPH).

Dr. D, I know that you speak quite a bit about External Communicating Hydrocephalus (ECH) so I was trying to ascertain the relation between these two. Are they just synonyms for the same condition? Or are they two separate and distinct conditions?

My father is still in denial about EDS, yet his aunt has had a shunt for NPH and his cousin (daughter of this same aunt) had Chiari Malformation which has now been surgically corrected. My paternal grandmother also passed away in March after suffering with dementia and symptoms of NPH for approximately 10 years.

While I realize that NPH can often be a result of simply the aging process, given that my father was diagnosed years ago with ADD yet conventional ADD medications had little to no effect, I have to wonder if he hasn’t been suffering from the chronic effects of mild NPH most or all of his life and it has only now, courtesy of the aging process, progressed to a troublesome level with more acute symptoms.

I have called him “The Absent Minded Professor” for much of my life. Don’t get me wrong, I love him dearly and it is a term of endearment, albeit a wholly accurate one. To illustrate, on one occasion, for my birthday, he sent me the Encarta Encyclopedia on DVD…yet forgot to include the disks. It was an empty box. He is, in real life, a professor, teaching mathematics in Colorado…so he often sends me his gently used education materials as gifts, and I am thoroughly happy with that (I am a learning obsessed egghead…LOL!!). But it is quirky little things like this along with the family history and overall picture that makes me wonder.

Thoughts? Answers?

HH

[jummon222]

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