BRAIN HAEMORRHAGE
BRAIN ANEURISM SYMPTOMS

A brain haemorrhage which may be a subdural, extradural or a subarachnoid haemorrhage is a sudden leak of blood and is caused by the rupture of a weakened blood vessel known as a brain aneurism.

Subdural Haemorrhage
is often slowly evolving, frequently starting after trauma to the head and elderly people are particularly susceptible.

Extradural Haemorrhage
usually occurs after a head injury frequently as a result of playing a contact sport.

Subarachnoid Haemorrhage
is due to a rupture of one of the main arteries supplying the brain. Patients usually complain of a sudden onset of severe headache at the back of the head.

Risk factors include high blood pressure and smoking and the problem is more common in the elderly, however these incidents can occur in the absence of known risk factors. Brain aneurism symptoms usually include a severe headache which persists for more than an hour and in severe cases, the person may vomit, collapse, lose consciousness or suffer from a fit.

Diagnosis can be difficult and accident and emergency doctors often ignore the relatively minor symptoms that sometimes occur. If a healthcare professional has not exercised reasonable skill and care and has failed to make a correct diagnosis following the warning signs then any subsequent major bleed that occurs causing death or illness, pain and suffering and financial loss may result in a claim for compensation for medical negligence.

This condition is a medical emergency and often requires urgent surgical intervention which if carried out negligently causes damage that would otherwise not have occurred, then it may also be possible to recover compensation not only for any initial misdiagnosis and delay but also for subsequent negligent treatment and inadequate remedial surgery.

A brain aneurism is present in at least 1 percent of the population which means that about 600,000 people in the UK are at risk of suffering from a brain haemorrhage. About a quarter of all patients who had bleeding into the brain died within one day after diagnosis. Five years after a bleed almost a half of patients with haemorrhage have died compared with a third of patients with other symptoms. Better survival also includes younger age and later calendar year of presentation, implying that survival rates are improving with time. The nature of the symptoms depends on the size of the aneurism, and its location in the brain. About one in five people with an aneurism have more than one aneurism.

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