How to Determine the Over Drainage of a Shunt

Thousands of interconnected blood vessels run through the human body. Some parts of the body, including the liver and stomach, have more than one blood supply, and thus more than one blood vessel leading to and away from them. An organ supplied by multiple vessels has an advantage because if one vessel blocked, blood is shunted to another vessel. This can spare the organ from cell death. Another type of shunting occurs when veins and arteries join together without intervening capillaries. This is problematic because it is a very unstable formation and can cause uncontrollable, life-threatening bleeding. This type of shunting may result from improper healing after surgery or be congenital.

Instructions

Neurosurgery Shunting

• 1

  Determine where the shunt begins and ends. Locating the shunt is important in order to assess the areas of the body that will be most affected if problems occur.

• 2

  Place a ventricular shunt with the neuroendoscope. This procedure is performed by a neurosurgeon in the hospital. The ventricle shunt is a device that connects the two ventricles in the brain. The neuroendoscope is a tube that delivers the shunt to ventricles.The ventricular shunt is attached to an external drainage device through a catheter.

• 3

  Check for overdrainage of the shunt. Assess by checking cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) pressure by means of an inserted intraventricular catheter or a thin tube. Two types of overdrainage can occur. Fast CSF drainage will lead the brain to herniate and causing subdural hemorrhage. The second type of overdrainage occurs when CSF drains too slowly over time. This will cause slit ventricular syndrome in the brain. Symptoms of slit ventricle syndrome include headaches and vomiting. These symptoms are relieved when lying down.