Neurological and neuropsychological effects of cerebral spinal fluid shunting in children with assumed arrested ("normal pressure") hydrocephalus.

Normocephalic children found to have ventriculomegaly during evaluation of long-standing (4.5-8.5 years) neurological disorder were tested for academic achievement, intellectual quotient and neuropsychological functioning. Radioactive iodinated serum cisternography, pre and post-shunt electrophysiological studies (visual evoked responses, brainstem auditory evoked potentials, sleep electroencephalograms) and radiological studies (skull radiographs computed tomography) were recorded. Four children who have been followed more than one year after insertion of ventricular-peritoneal shunts are presented. All demonstrated improvement in psychometric findings along with some improvement in CT scan and EEG studies. The most marked initial changes were noted on measures of neuropsychological performance, accompanied later by improvement in measures of intelligence. Achievement test scores showed no consistent pattern of change. This sample suggests that there is a group of asymptomatic children with apparent clinically stable (arrested) hydrocephalus in whom abnormal neuropsychological testing indicates the need for cerebrospinal fluid shunting, with subsequent improvement.