What is a Hemispherectomy and what is the quality of life after one?
The brain is a very complex organ. It is home to everything that makes you human and able to function. The brain is made of many different regions which all have specific jobs they carry out. The brain is divided into two separate hemispheres or halves. The complete surgical removal or disconnection of one half of the brain due to uncontrollable seizures is called a Hemispherectomy.
In the most dramatic cases they need to remove the whole hemisphere, in more common cases though only a small part of the effected side needs to be removed. The deeper parts of the brain like the thalamus, brain stem and the basal ganglia are left untouched. They also cut the corpus callosum
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This enables the other hemisphere to make new connections and to compensate for the loss of the other hemisphere. This procedure is only done as a last minute option as it is an extreme measure. As you can imagine this procedure is not for everyone. This surgery is only considered in patients who already present with limb weakness and loss of sensation on the side opposite to where the seizures originate. In most cases this procedure is done on children who already have these weaknesses or have epilepsy caused by Rasmussen’s encephalitis or Sturge-Weber syndrome, both usually affecting one hemisphere. There are some disease where the symptoms cause severe epilepsy in one half of the brain, this makes them treatable by a hemispherectomy. Rasmussen’s Encephalitis is a rare disease with symptoms of childhood onset of uncontrollable seizures, paralysis on one side of the body, vision starts to decrease, and loss of mental function. Sturge-weber syndrome is characterized by a birthmark on the face. Patients with this disease often present with glaucoma, seizures, and mental delays. A hemispherectomy however, is a rare occurrence with Sturge-weber patients as drug therapy often works
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the correlational method as a means for examining the relationship between functions of the left and right hemispheres. I will compare the performance of people with intact brains with the performance of so-called split-brain patients. In many ways, the brains of these two groups are very similar. 1a. The brain stem is found in the deepest part of the brain. The brainstem controls the automatic survival functions of the body, such as breathing. There are no differences between the function of the normal brainstem and the brain of a split brain patient. The brainstem will still supply the automatic survival functions of the body. 1b. The hippocampus is found in the limbic system along with the amygdala, the hypothalamus. The hippocampus is in charge of allowing the body to process information into memories. Without the hippocampus, there is no way for new memories to be created. There is no anatomical difference between the hippocampus in the normal brain and a split brain. 1c. The corpus callosum is found in the center of the brain. The role it plays as a part of the brain is it connects both the left and right hemispheres of the brain, allowing them to work and interact together as a whole system. The difference between the anatomy of the corpus callosum in a split brain patient versus someone without a
Charlie said that “I get awful headaches, and asperin doesn’t help much”. This quote explains the severity of the surgery. The surgery has too little research to test on any human being.
* In split-brain surgery the bundle of fibers that connects cerebral hemispheres (the corpus callosum) is cut to reduce the severity of epileptic seizures.
If symptoms progress, patients should make an appointment with a surgeon to see about surgical options. Surgery is to stop any progression of changes in the anatomy within the brain and spinal cord. Surgery is supposed to ease or at least stabilize any symptoms. The surgery decompresses the cervicomedullary junction and restores the normal
Extraoral conditions include cranial malformations due to closure of coronal, lambdoid or sagittal sutures. This results most commonly in brachycephaly, but trigonocephaly, scaophocephaly, and cloverleaf skull may also be seen. Early suture synostosis is directly related to increased intracranial pressure, which may affect the normal development of other neural structures leading to swelling of the optic nerve and chronic tonsillar herniation. In addition, shallow orbits of the eye is a well observed symptom and may lead to proptosis. In frequent cases, proptosis may cause conjunctivitis or
A condition is defined as the state of something, especially with regard to its appearance, quality, or working order. Hydrocephalus is classified as a condition due to the abnormal shape the head takes. The head becomes swollen and large due to the excessive amount of cerebrospinal fluid that will not drain properly. Currently there is only two ways to treat this condition and that is by installing a shunt or preforming an Endoscopic Third ventriculostomy. Some people oppose the thought of the endoscopic third ventriculostomy because, it is not the common way to treat the condition. Even though this treatment is up and coming, it is a more effective treatment. The best choice of treatment is the endoscopic third ventriculostomy because, the chance of blockage, over draining, and infection is lower.
By eliminating the pathway of communication between the hemispheres, a seizure can be kept from spreading. The procedure is called Corpus callosotomy, two-thirds of the anterior CC is sectioned off for a partial callosotomy; one-third of the posterior is sectioned for a complete callosotomy. The complete callosotomy of the CC is know as a split-brain procedure. By severing the communication of the hemisphere, both will have its own impulses; acting as “two brains” in one body. However, a split-brain procedure is dangerous and most doctors recommend a partial callosotomy then the complete split of the brain. Other diseases such as Alien hand syndrome (AHS) and Agenesis of the corpus callosum (ACC) can occur due to damage in the CC. Alien hand syndrome is the involuntary movement of a persons hand without their awareness and a lack of control over the action. ACC is a birth defect due to the absence of the corpus callosum. This occurs if the CC fails to develop normally between the third and twelfth week of pregnancy. This can lead to vision impairment, poor motor control, low perception of pain and difficulty chewing and
but not all ROP complications can be treated do you sacrifice sight for brain function?
Over the years, brain surgery has evolved substantially. Looking into multiple types of surgery, surgery is able to be quite unusual. Humans will cut into each other a lot of times in order to get rid of deadly disease and even just to remove excess body fat. The reality that we do not marvel about these on a daily basis shows how advanced surgery has grown over the years. Surgery is a safer and more reliable tool including a necessary component of health care. Previously, the surgeries themselves were brutal from lack of understandings toward anesthesia and none of the tools accessible today with operations forced and traumatic. With the present tools through surgery, brain surgery has changed greatly. This article chosen was aligning with
Would you ever expect to go one day not needing surgery, to the next needing it? The syndrome I am going to tell you about today has two sides and both often need a sudden fix.
Brain surgery is a type of surgery that is related to the brain. Brain surgery could be used for taking out tumors. It can also be used for taking out blood clots in the brain. For brain surgeries the surgeon that is doing it needs to have a lot of patience, and needs to be very precise. Even though every surgeon has to have patience and precision, when
My six year old nephew Jackson suffers from Lennox Gastaut syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy most commonly found in children. This syndrome causes the child affected to experience frequent and varied seizures and it severely affects mental development, thus treatment is very difficult. There is no actual cure for LGS but remedies are available, such as a ketogenic, mostly fat, diet or antiepileptic drugs, but even these are not reliable to remedy seizures. Another such solution is to remove the part of the brain which causes the seizures altogether. When people have seizures, their brain turns
The first thing to do before an awake brain surgery starts - is to find out if you need one or not. That’s where an MRI comes in, they’ll put you through it and the machine scans your body to help the surgeons know if your situation is serious enough for an awake surgery. If you do need an awake surgery - they’ll schedule you first of course - but even after that in the pre-op room a speech specialist will talk to the patient or have you identify an image. Once you get into the surgery room, they will sedate you and numb your scalp, then they’ll let you awake and start the surgery. During the surgery - the surgeon will talk to you or ask you simple questions (e.g. What’s your name?). Soon, after the surgery, they’ll sedate you again. Once you
Visual fields full to confrontation. Extraocular muscles intact. PERRLADC. Normal facial symmetry, sensation and movement. Tongue and uvula were midline. Normal auditory acuity. Shoulder shrug is normal.
An experience from my life that exemplifies the distinction of the two hemispheres of the brain is when I was four. We would visit my aunt and uncle’s house and I would use their children’s toys. I was less interested in the Barbies and dolls that belonged to my female cousin than I was in the Legos that belonged to her brother. He had several Lego models built and placed on shelves in his room. He enjoyed putting them together and playing with them as the sets instructed. I was more comfortable, taking the sets apart and sorting the pieces by size, shape, color, etc. This arranging and organizing led me to realizing much later that I was less of a spatial/visual person and was more organized and numerically inclined. Although, after I was done sorting and counting them, I would build something that didn’t have instructions; a car, a house, a giant man. Though I enjoyed the sorting process, I also was very imaginative in the situations I would conjure up for the tiny Lego men. Looking back, I can see that one hemisphere does not dominate the other, but I can have characteristics from both sides of the brain.