Neurological Assessment Glasgow Coma Scale - Paper Example

Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) refers to the neurological level that I used to describe an individuals degree of consciousness after a traumatic brain injury (BrainLine, 2017). The scale is widely used by the first responders, nurses, EMS as well as doctors precisely when there is an acute medical and trauma patient. In the hospitals, it used to monitor chronic patients who are in intensive care. The test is reliable, simple and correlates appropriately with the outcome following severe brain injury (Peiniger, et.al, 2012).

Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) assess the patient for three separate responses, Eye-opening, Verbal response and motor response. The scale is made-up of three tests, eye (E), verbal (V), motor (M) responses. The three criteria are discrete, and their sum considerable (Glasgow Coma Scale Creative Project, 2017).

1 2 3 4 5 6

Eye (E) NO eyes open Eyes open in accentuated to painful stimuli Eyes open in response to voice Eyes open spontaneously N/A N/A

Verbal (V) No Verbal response Unintelligible sounds (moaning) Speak mumbled words Disoriented, confused Converse normally, oriented N/A

Motor (M) Immobile Decerebrate posturing stimulated by pain Decorticate response Flexion to painful stimuli Localizes to painful stimuli Obey commands

Important: A motor response in any limb is taken into consideration.

Brain injury differs from one patient to another, but generally, the classification of brain injury is as follows (Leitgeb, et.al., 2013):

Severe: GCS 3-8

Moderate: GCS 9-12

Mild: GCS 13-15

The lowest possible GCS (the sum) is (which can be either deep coma or death), while 15 is the highest (fully awake person). Pediatric brain injuries are categorized depending on the severity, the same scoring levels used in adults similar to the ones used in the pediatric cases (Ahun, et.a, 2014). Factors that limit the use of GCS include, alcohol intoxication, drugs use, ow blood pressure or shock, they all affect the consciousness of the patient. Such factors lead to the inaccurate GCS scoring (Coma Scale - Clinical Skills Series., 2017).

References

BrainLine. (2017). What Is the Glasgow Coma Scale? | BrainLine. [online] Available at: https://www.brainline.org/article/what-glasgow-coma-scale [Accessed 10 Nov. 2017]. The

Glasgow Coma Scale - Clinical Skills Series. (2017). YouTube. Retrieved 10 November 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvki-dmQ23MPeiniger, S., Nienaber, U., Lefering, R., Braun, M., Wafaisade, A., Borgman, M.A., Spinella, P.C., Maegele, M. and Trauma Registry of the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Unfallchirurgie, 2012. Glasgow Coma Scale as a predictor for hemocoagulative disorders after blunt pediatric traumatic brain injury. Pediatric critical care medicine, 13(4), pp.455-460.

Leitgeb, J., Mauritz, W., Brazinova, A., Majdan, M., Janciak, I., Wilbacher, I. and Rusnak, M., 2013. Glasgow Coma Scale score at intensive care unit discharge predicts the 1-year outcome of patients with severe traumatic brain injury. European Journal of Trauma and Emergency Surgery, 39(3), pp.285-292.

Ahun, E., Koksal, O., Sigirli, D., Torun, G., Donmez, S.S. and Armagan, E., 2014. Value of the Glasgow coma scale, age, and arterial blood pressure score for predicting the mortality of major trauma patients presenting to the emergency department. Ulus Travma Acil Cerrahi Derg, 20(4), pp.241-7.

Glasgow Coma Scale Creative Project. (2017). [YouTube online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-tmRwIww2c [Accessed 10 Nov. 2017].