Intracranial haemorrhage is a condition of global importance. The worldwide prevalence of haemorrhagic stroke doubled from 1990 to 2013, reaching circa 3.7 million patients (1). The mean lifetime cost of brain haemorrhage per person was estimated to be $228, 030 for subarachnoid haemorrhage and $123, 565 for intracranial haemorrhage (2). Hence the total worldwide cost runs into hundreds of billions of pounds. Subarachnoid haemorrhage has the highest such cost per capita since it affects people of younger age, with a bigger impact on economic productivity.
Functional outcome after subarachnoid haemorrhage
Subarachnoid haemorrhage may give rise to highly clinically apparent neurological deficits, as well as less obvious deficits which affect quality of life, including cognitive, auditory, behavioural, psychological and social domains (3). The impact of subarachnoid haemorrhage on functional outcome is exemplified by a patient’s description of her experience in artistic form below.
Images created by Issy Robertson, a survivor of SAH (reproduced with permission).
References
1. Krishnamurthi RV, Moran AE, Feigin VL, Barker-Collo S, Norrving B, Mensah GA, Taylor S, Naghavi M, Forouzanfar MH, Nguyen G, Johnson CO, Vos T, Murray CJ, Roth GA; GBD 2013 Stroke Panel Experts Group. Stroke Prevalence, Mortality and Disability-Adjusted Life Years in Adults Aged 20-64 Years in 1990-2013: Data from the Global Burden of Disease 2013 Study. Neuroepidemiology. 2015;45(3):190-202.
2. Taylor TN, Davis PH, Torner JC, Holmes J, Meyer JW, Jacobson MF. Lifetime cost of stroke in the United States. Stroke. 1996 Sep;27(9):1459-66
3. Pace A, Mitchell S, Casselden E, Zolnourian A, Glazier J, Foulkes L, Bulters D, Galea I. A subarachnoid haemorrhage-specific outcome tool. Brain. 2018 Apr 1;141(4):1111-1121.