Spontaneous subarachnoid hemorrhage diagnosis
The diagnosis of SAH should be considered in any patient with a severe and sudden onset or rapidly escalating headache. With such a large number of patients presenting to the ED with a chief complaint of headache, differentiating those with a benign cause from those with an emergent etiology such as SAH can be difficult. Deciding which patients require a workup for SAH is often the most challenging part of the emergency physician’s care, in part due to the low frequency and high acuity of the illness.