Introduction

The cervical collar is a wearable device for the non-invasive treatment of hydrocephalus.

The treatment consists in acting on the blood flow in order to change its mode of exit from the skull, through the administration of a “counter-pulsation” that indirectly regulates the natural pathological liquoral pulsation.

Technical features

The solution proposed aims to treat hydrocephalus with an absolutely innovative non-invasive method, which can be achieved through an outside-implemented modification of some structures which find their ultimate destination within the intracranial space. Such structures are the jugular veins.

The basic idea on which this patent is based, is that hydrocephalus depends on the relationship between two factors, both fundamental. On one hand, the liquor pulsation, in turn connected to the main cardiac pulse and on the other, the asymmetrical behavior of the venous blood exiting the skull, on which depends the intracranial system’s ability to compensate for changes in the intracranial volume and hence in the CSF (cerebrospinal fluid) pulsation. The invention aims to modify the effects of intracranial pulsation, a major cause of is hydrocephalus, through an EKG-triggered compression of jugular veins in the neck. The latters are the venous emissaries from intracranial space, in direct communication with the superior sagittal sinus to which cerebral veins are connected. Our idea is that the percutaneous compression of jugular veins, by producing a “counter-pulsation” of cerebral veins, determines a “static” pulsatile wave, thus cancelling the effects of intracranial pulsation on hydrocephalus formation.

Possible Applications

• In all cases of normotensive hydrocephalus;
• When no surgical treatment is possible due to pathologies or anticoagulation / antiplatelet therapies;
• Patients already treated with shunts, in replacement of continuous revisions.

Advantages

• Treating hydrocephalus in a non-invasive way;
• Treating even patients who cannot be treated surgically.
• Treating patients using anticoagulants or antiplatelet.
• Impossibility of any shunt “malfunction“ simply because no shunts are employed.
• Impossibility of any shunt “infection” risk since no shunts are included.