A new study shows shunting works for normal pressure hydrocephalus, Elizabeth Tracey reports

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As people age, many will develop problems with walking, cognition, and urination. Yet while some may point to dementia as the cause, a build up of fluid in the brain known as normal pressure hydrocephalus, which can be treated by diverting the fluid into the abdomen with a shunt, may also be the culprit. And it works, according to a new study by neurosurgeon Mark Luciano at Johns Hopkins, and colleagues.

Luciano: There are people say well why are you doing this, it works we know it works. There's actually so much subjectivity even in the testing there's subjectivity, because what we do is we test the person’s walking, we take fluid out through the back just temporarily and then test them again. Even our measurements, even our tests have some subjectivity in them. In the elderly we have to be careful to really prove that that there is an improvement, the effect of a placebo is extremely strong. I know that there's something functional going on.  There is a placebo effect here, let's see how much the physiological effect the real effect is there.            :30

Luciano’s study demonstrated improvements when shunting was employed. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.