Psychiatric Manifestations of Communicating Hydrocephalus in a Deaf Man

The communicating difficulties of prelingually deaf patients can make both psychiatric & physical diagnosis extremely difficult. Inability to understand deaf patients often leads to diagnostic errors. This article describes a case of a deaf man who presented with headaches, hostility, agitation & suicidal threats who was diagnosed as having a communicating hydrocephalus following a CT scan of the head. A ventricular peritoneal shunt resulted in a dramatic improvement of the patient’s symptoms.