Cerebral Hemorrhage: Understanding Treatment and Hospital Care

A cerebral hemorrhage is a serious medical complication that can only be treated in hospital facilities. Even with modern equipment, today's medicine often falls short of a patient's full recovery.

Things You'll Need

• Glasgow coma scale
• Hospital facilities

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Instructions

Treat a Patient With a Cerebral Hemorrhage

• 1

  Evaluate the nature of the hemorrhage. Neurosurgeons use computed tomography (CT) scans and magnetic resonance imagine (MRI) to determine the location and severity of the bleeding. Sometimes, the hemorrhage will be ranked according to the Hunt and Hess scale of severity.

• 2

  Have blood and intravenous fluids available at bedside to make up for the patient's loss of blood and fluids during the ordeal. The patient may require multiple transfusions.

• 3

  Administer anti-hypertensive drugs if the patient's blood pressure is too high. These drugs will lower the blood pressure, slow the bleeding and prevent a cardiac arrest during treatment.

• 4

  Keep anti-convulsants handy in case the patient begins to seize. Anti-convulsants help prevent seizures and give the doctors less reason to be surprised by sudden complications.

• 5

  Be ready to administer painkillers, corticosteroids or diuretics to the patient. These types of drugs are used to reduce swelling. Swelling is a common bodily reaction to a hemorrhage.

Cure a Patient of a Cerebral Hemorrhage

• 6

  Prepare the patient for surgery. Stabilize the patient as much as possible with medications and administer anesthesia when the patient is still conscious.

• 7

  Perform surgery on the patient. The excess bleeding in the brain will have to be removed for the patient to recover. This surgery should be performed as soon as possible to increase the chances of survival.

• 8

  In the case of a ruptured aneurysm, rush the patient into emergency surgery. The artery will need to be immediately tied off and replaced. If the aneurysm is not clipped off from normal blood circulation, the patient will not survive.