Hello and welcome to the zero to finals podcast.

My name is Tom and in this episode I'm going to be talking to you about intracranial bleeds.

And if you want to follow along with written notes on this topic,

you can follow along at zero to finals.com slash intracranial bleeds

or in the neurology section of the zero to finals the Neurology section of the Zero Definals Medicine book.

So let's get straight into it.

Around 10 to 20% of strokes are caused by intracranial bleeds

and there's a few risk factors for having an intracranial bleed.

Firstly, having a head injury, high blood pressure or hypertension. Thirdly, if they have any aneurysms

that are existing in the brain that maybe they'd never known about or might have incidentally found

on a routine MRI scan to look for another issue. Having an ischemic stroke can progress into a

hemorrhage because that infarcted and damaged tissue can lead to bleeding.

Brain tumors can cause intracranial bleeds.

And patients are at higher risk if they're on anticoagulants such as warfarin or doax.

So what's the presentation?

Well, a key feature that you need to look out for in your exams

is a sudden onset headache. They can also present with seizures, focal weakness, vomiting,

reduced consciousness and other sudden onset neurological symptoms. It's important to be

familiar with something called the Glasgow Coma Scale.

And this is a universal tool for assessing the level of consciousness. And it's worth learning

for your exams and for everyday practice as it frequently appears in exams. And part of your

routine assessment of acutely unwell patients is to assess their consciousness level

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