Small Incision Brain Surgery Home Care Path

When asked about brain surgery the fears develop around the increased medical cost, long recovery time, residual scarring, and body disfigurement. Traditional brain surgery involved shaving the hair, peeling back the scalp, sawing off the top half of the skull, and moving around sensitive brain tissue.

Brain surgery is performed to remove an abnormal (tumor) mass of tissue, not inflammatory, arising without obvious cause from the cells of brain tissue, possessing no physiological function.

Brain surgery has embraced methods that do things in a simpler way so patients recover more quickly and the cost is less. The methods are called minimally invasive brain surgery. Brain surgeons have been going through the nose, eye brow, and even the leg. The newest addition to minimally invasive brain surgery is entry through the eye lid.

Entering the brain through the eye lid poses no threat to vision. Under the minicraniotomy, the eye lid is cut at a crease, and a quarter size piece of bone is removed just above the eyebrow. A computer guided endoscope fitted with a camera leads surgical instruments to a tumor needing removal. Once surgery is done a few hours later, the bone is replaced, and a small metal plate is used to hold it in place. A few dissolvable sutures close the eye lid and leave no visible scar.

The use of the eye lid for brain surgery is called transpalpebral orbitofrontral craniotomy. On the average patients return home in two days after brain surgery with some discoloration near the eye lid. Patients describe a fast recovery with little or no visible scarring. Home Care Path www.homecarepath.com staff accompany seniors to provider visits.