A Provocative Test to Determine Brain Compliance in the Management of Patients with Hydrocephalus

Non-invasive techniques to explore intracranial compliance and pressure have been extensively explored in recent years. Previous techniques have used expensive technologies to make these measurements, often with difficulty. We present a novel, inexpensive method and algorithm to observe trends in intracranial compliance measurement targeted towards the treatment and management of hydrocephalus. The technique uses two photo-plethysmographic sensors to record arterial pulse perfusion, a common tilt table apparatus to methodically and artificially increase intracranial pressure, and a digital signal processing algorithm to determine phase difference between the waveforms. A secondary phase-difference disease signature approach is also hypothesized