Acknowledgment The authors and editors wish to thank Dr. Shirley I. Stiver for her contribution in the previous edition. Trauma to the skull base is a relatively common occurrence in patients with traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and closed/open head injuries.…
Introduction Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a significant cause of death and disability, accounting for an estimated 235,000 hospitalizations and 50,000 deaths annually in the United States alone. While neurosurgeons play an integral role in the management of TBI, much…
Recent estimates of the magnitude of traumatic brain injury (TBI) suggest that each year nearly 3 million people sustain a head injury in the United States, with the majority of patients having a concussion or a mild TBI. According to…
Acknowledgments We want to express our appreciation to the medical illustrators Matthew Holt and Scott Barrows for their superb artistic work in the elaboration of Figs. 121.1 , 121.2 and 121.7 , as well as to Pere Lluis Leon, the…
The first clinical report of spinal cord stimulation (SCS) was published in 1967. These devices were the logical progression of the concept of gate control theory proposed by Wall and Melzack in 1965. This theory proposed that “control of pain…
A theory of pain transmission published in 1965 inspired researchers to develop a reversible, nondestructive pain therapy that relied on equipment adapted from cardiac pacemaker technology to deliver electrical stimulation to the spinal cord. The initial results of this therapy,…
Acknowledgments The authors wish to thank Mr. Mike Jensen for his valuable assistance with the medical illustrations of this chapter. The management of pharmaco-resistant pain of cancerous or noncancerous origin constitutes a rather challenging issue for the modern functional neurosurgeon.…
Introduction and History Interest in deep brain stimulation (DBS) for chronic pain has waxed and waned over the past half century. Stimulation of the septal region of the brain for pain relief was first attempted in the 1950s. Chronic stimulation…
Introduction The pathobiology of vascular compression of the trigeminal (V), facial (VII), glossopharyngeal (IX), and vagus (X) nerves underlies a number of related neurologic disorders. Dandy (1932) first described vascular compression of the trigeminal nerve in the posterior fossa as…
The disease course of trigeminal neuralgia is varied for each patient and expressed in the pathophysiologic nuances of the facial pain, medical history, treatment preferences, and outcomes. Therefore the treatment paradigm should strive to integrate the full complement of medical…