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Standardizing the large-volume "tap test" for evaluating idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus: a systematic review

2025· review· en· W4408203536 on OpenAlexaff
Brent Bluett, Lealani Mae Y. Acosta, Elissa L. Ash, Bastiaan R. Bloem, Alberto J. Espay, Amtul Farheen, Alfonso Fasano, Alissa HIGINBOTHAM, Joachim K. Krauss, Anthony E. Lang, Giovanni Mostile, Icíar Avilés-Olmos, Andrea Quattrone, Philip W. Tipton, David F. Tang‐Wai

Bibliographic record

VenueJournal of Neurosurgical Sciences · 2025
Typereview
Languageen
FieldNeuroscience
TopicCerebrospinal fluid and hydrocephalus
Canadian institutionsToronto Western HospitalUniversity Health NetworkUniversity of TorontoCentre for Movement Disorders
Fundersnot available
KeywordsMedicineNormal pressure hydrocephalusHydrocephalusTest (biology)Volume (thermodynamics)Internal medicineRadiologyDementiaDisease

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

INTRODUCTION: Idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus (iNPH) is characterized by the clinical triad of gait, cognitive, and urinary dysfunction associated with ventriculomegaly on neuroimaging. Clinical evaluation before and after CSF removal via large volume lumbar puncture (the "tap test") is used to determine a patient's potential to benefit from shunt placement. Although clinical guidelines for iNPH exist, a standardized protocol detailing the procedural methodology of the tap test is lacking. EVIDENCE ACQUISITION: Using PRISMA guidelines, a systematic review of PubMed and Embase identifying studies of the tap test in iNPH was performed, centered on four clinical questions (volume of CSF to remove, type of needle for lumbar puncture, which clinical assessments to utilize, and timing of assessments). A modified Delphi approach was then applied to develop a consensus standardized tap test protocol for the evaluation of idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus. EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS: Two hundred twenty-two full-text articles encompassing a total of 80,322 participants with iNPH met eligibility and were reviewed. Variations in the tap test protocol resulted in minimal concordance among studies. A standardized protocol of the tap test was iteratively developed over a two-year period by members of the International Parkinson and Movement Disorders Society Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus Study Group until expert consensus was reached. CONCLUSIONS: The literature shows significant variability in the procedural methodology of the tap test. The proposed protocol was subsequently developed to standardize clinical management, improve patient outcomes, and better align future research in idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame distilled prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.013
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.039
Version: codex-gemma-dda1882f352aValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesMetaresearch, Meta-epidemiology (narrow), Science and technology studies
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Systematic review · Consensus signal: Systematic review
GenreCandidate signal: Review · Consensus signal: Review
Teacher disagreement score0.355
Threshold uncertainty score1.000

Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0130.039
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0010.000
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0040.002
Bibliometrics0.0000.002
Science and technology studies0.0010.000
Scholarly communication0.0010.001
Open science0.0030.000
Research integrity0.0000.001
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0000.000

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.077
GPT teacher head0.396
Teacher spread0.319 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.

Study designSystematic review
Domainnot available
GenreReview

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations10
Published2025
Admission routes1
Has abstractyes

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