How to Treat a Subarachnoid Hemorrhage

Only half of patients suffering from a subarachnoid hemorrhage will survive the trip to the hospital. Half of the survivors will probably experience a second subarachnoid hemorrhage within the year. However, there have been cases of patients surviving, and recovering from, more than one subarachnoid hemorrhage. Read on to learn how to maximize the patient's chances of survival.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• CT scan
• Hospital facilities

Stabilize the Subarachnoid Hemorrhage Patient

1. Monitor the patient closely. Keep the Glasgow Coma Scale running at all times and pay constant attention to the blood pressure, pulse and respiratory rates. Hemorrhage patients are subject to sudden changes.

2. Administer calcium channel blockers to the patient. These drugs are used to reduce the risk of stroke.

3. Set up intubation and mechanical ventilation when necessary. Most subarachnoid hemorrhage patients will be unconscious or comatose. Basic nutrition might need to be administered via a nasogastric tube.

4. Administer pain control to the patient, but stay clear of sedating drugs. Sedation will interfere with any monitoring of the patient's consciousness, which may interfere with the neurologists' ability to do their jobs.

5. Run a CT scan or MRI of the patient's head to determine the location of the hemorrhage. Once the diagnosis is confirmed, it is best to keep the patient in the intensive care unit (ICU). There is a good chance that the patient will experience more bleeding, even after being stabilized.

Treat the Subarachnoid Hemorrhage Patient

6. Prep the patient for surgery. Surgery is usually required for all subarachnoid hemorrhage patients. The human brain is a fragile organ and no abnormality can be allowed to stay within it.

7. Clip all affected arteries. This will stop the bleeding. Later on, the surgeons will probably need to take a piece of another artery and transplant it to the brain as a replacement. Initially, stopping the bleeding is all that matters.

8. Remove all aneurysms. The most common cause of a subarachnoid hemorrhage is a burst aneurysm. The usual method of removing an aneurysm is endovascular coiling, which causes the aneurysm to regress. Clipping is also used, but is less preferred.

Tips & Warnings

• You may want to plan your emergency route early, especially if the patient is at high risk. It is of vital importance to treat a subarachnoid hemorrhage as quickly as possible, but it is equally important to make sure the patient is being treated at a facility equipped to handle this type of emergency. Taking the patient to a hospital lacking the proper equipment to treat a subarachnoid hemorrhage will waste precious time the patient probably does not have.

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