Intracranial Pressure Monitoring

Intracranial pressure (ICP) is the staple of neurocritical care as it is an indicator of dysfunctional intracranial compliance. Intracranial disease or pathology involves complex pathophysiological cascades of events that alter cerebral blood flow, cerebral oxygenation, and metabolism beyond intracranial pressure. Management of elevated ICP is critical for improved clinical outcome. ICP measurement thus constitutes an essential part of multimodal monitoring and is by far the most applied monitoring parameter ICP is measured in diverse neurological conditions. This chapter discusses physiological and pathological trends of ICP in relation to intracranial compliance and various invasive and non invasive techniques of ICP measurement.