Let me ask you something, does the shunt help? They say that water on the brain is misdiagnosed as Alzheimers. They wanted to perform this on my Mother, but I said no because of her age. Have you seen a big difference in your mother?
Hildy, it seemed to help a lot for a little while, but that was because the water on her brain was really "adding on" to her Alzheimer's. She improved after the shunt to be able to move a bit more, and sometimes babble a bit, instead of being rigid and asleep all the time.
A shunt is risky. There can be problems. It is a hard call.