Living with Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus

We live in SE Queensland, Australia, and my wife collapsed in November 2008 after which she walked with a shuffle and a stoop, had major balance problems, her hands shook uncontrollably when she tried to pick up anything, or to eat, and she was unable to operate the microwave oven, etc. Apart from that she was more or less in control of her faculties. However, in march 2009 she had a grand mal seizure after which she started to show dementia-like symptoms.

Since then she has had two more smaller seizures accompanied by further losses in cognitive function, and mental confusion, and now in September 2009, she has to be supervised and helped all of the time, even with feeding. She has a good short term memory for some things, but cannot add subtract, or divide. A ceretec perfusion study indicated normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH), and another MRI a few weeks later suggested NPH, but a high volume spinal tap only caused marginal improvement.

The medicos are not convinced that it is NPH despite extensive US literature which claim that the disorder is very hard to diagnose, the Adams triad is unreliable, and high volume spinal taps are only partially successful as a diagnostic tool. The surgeon who was going to install a shunt has now backed off without explanation, and has referred her to a geriatrician without telling us why. Even our GP is frustrated at the inaction of the neurologists and neuro-surgeon. Any help or suggestions would be gratefully received.