Improvement in the long-term care burden after surgical treatment of patients with idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus: a supplementary study

Abstract

Idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus (iNPH) is a surgically treatable syndrome commonly observed in older adults. However, it is unclear whether clinical improvements after surgery can effectively reduce the long-term care burden (LTCB). In this study, we determined whether shunt surgery was effective in decreasing LTCB. We also investigated the degree of variability in patients and hospitals, using data from the iNPH multicenter study. This study involved 69 participants who underwent lumboperitoneal shunt surgery with follow-up for 12 months. A generalized linear mixed model was applied to analyze the fixed and random effects simultaneously. Regarding LTCB, the disability grades improved significantly. Although the dementia grades also improved, it was not statistically significant. The differences in the LTCB grades in most patients were within the range of the 95% confidence intervals, while in the case of hospitals, some were often out of the range. Further studies are needed to improve dementia in patients with iNPH. The incorporation of random variables, such as hospitals, is important for the analysis of data from multicenter studies.