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The Glasgow Coma scale calculator is a calculator which is a neurological assessment of a person. It is used frequently after any type of traumatic brain injury to test a person's neurological functioning. The Glasgow Coma Scale ranges from a score of 3-15. A score of 3 means the person is in a severe coma, whereas a score of 15 means the person is neurologically functioning well. The glasgow coma scale takes into account 3 categories, a person's motor skills, speech, and eye, to test for neurological functioning.
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The first category is eye response. A person receives a score of 4 if he or she has spontaneous eye movement. This means that he opens his eyes without need any type of prompting. A person will receive a score of 3 if he opens his eyes in response to speech or verbal command.
The nurse may say, 'Okay, can you please open your eyes?' A person will receive a score of 2 if he only opens his eyes in response to pain. For example, the nurse may push down on the patient's nail beds to elicit the opening of the patient's eyes. A person will receive a score of 1 if there was no eye opening after numerous attempts and prompts to do so. So eye response is scored from 1 to 4. The next category is verbal response.
The verbal response is scored from a scale of 1-5. A person will receive a score of 5 if he is alert and oriented and the speech is normal and appropriate to the question being asked or topic in discussion. A person will receive a score of 4 if he is confused but his speech is still understandable and coherent. For example, the nurse may ask the patient, where are you? And the patient may answer that he is at home when in fact he is at the hospital. The answer shows confusion but still answers the question and is coherent.
A person will receive a score of 3 if he responds with what is referred to as a word salad, jumbled phrases that are often completely unrelated to the question being asked. For example, a nurse may ask, 'what is your name?' And the patient may respond that it's July 4th and I'm going to see fireworks. In other words, the patient responds with words that are understandable but are completely illogical and unrelated to the topic of discussion. The words may also be random, such as 'It's Christmas. I'm going to go home and vacuum.
The easter bunny is here. There's a college across the street from my home.' A person will receive a score of 2 if he just produces incomprehensible sounds. This may be groaning or mumbling that cannot be deciphered or understood as words. A person will receive a score of 1 if there is no verbal response at all. The next category is motor response.
The motor response is scored from 1 to 6. A person will receive a score of 6 if he can completely obey a command to perform a motor skill. This may be a command such as raise your arm and wiggle your fingers. A person will receive a score of 5 if he is able to localize to pain. So the nurse may put pressure on a certain part of the patient's body, such as above the eyes.
If the patient takes his hand and places it on the point of pressure to remove the source of the pressure point of pain, he is able to localize to the source of pain to remove it. A person will receive a score of 4 if he withdraws from pain. So again the nurse applies a pressure point of pain to a certain part of the patient's body, such as pressing down on the fingerbeds. If the patient moves his hand away from the source of pain, he is able to withdraw from pain. A person receives a score of 3 if he displays decorticate posturing. This is an abnormal flexion response. This is when the hands are turned inward toward the chest and the legs are extended and internally rotated and plantar flexed.
A person receives a score of 2 if he displays decerebrate posturing. This is an abnormal extension response. This is when the arms are abducted with the wrists pronated and fingers flexed, and legs extended and plantar flexed. A person will receive a score of 1 if he is flaccid, with no motor response at all. A glasgow coma scale score of 13-15 is indicative of mild to no brain injury. A score of 9-12 is indicative of a moderate brain injury. A score of 3-8 indicates a severe brain injury, where the person is in a coma.
The glasgow coma scale is a great neurological assessment and it is used widely in the healthcare industry to assess any type of brain injury. So just remember that eye response is 1-4, speech response is 1-5, and motor response is 1-6. To use this calculator, a user enters in a person's response to these 3 categories, and the calculator will compute the glasgow coma scale score. If the glasgow coma scale is less than 13, usually a doctor will order further tests such as a CT scan, MRI, or EEG of a person to get more details of the person's injury. Thus, the glasgow coma scale can be used as a precursor for further electronic testing that may needed to be conducted of a person's brain.
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Glasgow Coma Scale Explained Whether for or for general use on the truck, calculating GCS can be a pain. Let's see how much we can simplify it. What is the Glasgow Coma Scale?
Think of GCS like an advanced method of AVPU; it's an accepted assessment tool for evaluating response ability. It's primarily used in head trauma to convey the possible extent of injury. You can transfer a lot of information about your patient in a very short amount of time.
It's like saying 'this patient is responsive to pain, and also exhibits this specific type of response.' The type of response, itself, is shorthand between providers that implies the severity of the injury or illness.
Giving GCS in a radio report tells the hospital what they are likely to encounter upon your arrival. Lets start with the MOST IMPORTANT THING TO KNOW: A dead person has a GCS score of THREE, not ZERO! This seems counter-intuitive because we naturally think of ZERO as NONE. So, if the patient has NO EYE response, we assume the score would be zero. The darn scale SHOULD go from 0-12 instead of 3-15. The scale is entirely arbitrary, and this change would make it easier to assimilate, would result in less errors and,thus, be more efficient. But, this is what we have, and it is, currently, the standard.
So, we just have to deal. You have to remember that the lowest number is 3. A dead person is GCS 3. A completely unresponsive person is GCS 3. A completely awake, oriented and normal person is a 15. These things you just have to dig into your head.
Now lets see why. Breaking Down the Glasgow Coma Scale Lets start with what we know: 3 = worst. Now, unless you want to memorize the whole chart or carry some card around you at all times, we have to come up with some ways to make it easier. We evaluate responsiveness in 3 categories: Eyes, Speech, and Motor. Lets say you have a GCS 12 patient. Just saying the score doesn't tell you that its E3, S4, M5.
It just adds up the three categories to give you an overall picture of how bad the patient is. We're just using GCS to say 'He's not that bad,' 'He's questionable,' or 'Man, he's really messed up.' The Standard GCS scale GCS in Plain English: We are assessing responsiveness because being able to react to stimuli means the brain is working.
MEMORY TOOL: For GCS SCORING, Remember 1,2,3,4,5,6 (Three Questions and 3 Scores) There are 3 questions: 1) Do his eyes respond? 2) Does he verbally respond? 3) Does he respond with his body? There are 3 max points: 4) Eyes get a max of 4 points, 5) verbal gets 5 points, 6) motor gets 6 points.
So, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Instead of writing GCS score to begin with, just start PRACTICING with using E4, S5, M6. Get in the habit of looking at a patient and judging his response. If he's totally responsive, he's E4, S5, M6. If he's a little confused, like after a concussion, but his eyes open and he has purposeful movements, then you only have to take 1 from speech.
So the confused guy is E4, S4, M6. Use it like a checklist. Do his eyes open? If yes, then score a 4.
If no, then score a 1. If 'kinda,' then look at the criteria.
Same with the other 2. Check yes or no or kinda.
If 'kinda' then check out that specific list and proceed. DO HIS EYES OPEN?
(Max 4) (Eyes are easy, you're assessing eye AVPU). No matter what I do, his eyes don't open. Eyes open when I inflict pain. Eyes open when I call his name. Eyes are normally open IS HE TALKING CORRECTLY? (Max 5).
He's not talking at all. He's just making sounds. He's saying words, but they don't make sense.
He's talking, but he's confused. He's talking normally IS HE ABLE TO MOVE HIS OWN BODY? (Max 6). He's not moving, no matter what I do. If I apply pain, his body flexes away from his core.
If I apply pain, his body tightens towards his core. If I apply pain, his body tries to back away from the pain spot. If I apply pain, he moves his hand to the pain spot.
He is moving on his own. Special Considerations and severe facial/eye swelling or damage make it impossible to test the verbal and eye responses.
In these circumstances, the score is given as 1 with a modifier attached e.g. 'E1c' where 'c' = closed, or 'V1t' where t = tube.
A composite might be 'GCS 5tc'. This would mean, for example, eyes closed because of swelling = 1, intubated = 1, leaving a motor score of 3 for 'abnormal flexion'. Often the 1 is left out, so the scale reads Ec or Vt. HOW TO MAKE IT EASIER! On the Truck I DON'T recommend using it, on the truck, for awhile. During clinical rides, and during your first year, you will likely have to use a delegated memory tool to calculate it.
If you have time to look at your GCS card, or look at your protocol book or an app, that's great. You probably won't have time, at first, so DON'T USE IT. You will probably spend more time looking it up than you will save by using it anyway, and your patient needs that extra time NOW.
If they're totally unresponsive, you can say 'GCS 3' and if they're totally normal, you can say 'GCS 15.' Just forget the numbers and just report on the 3 variables that matter in plain english. Example: Eyes are closed. He is only pulling away from pain. So, in short, REPORT what you SEE and FORGET about the numbers at first.
Over time, you will start to associate the levels more clearly with numbers out of habit, but if you don't, who cares? You can look it up if you need it. For the Test and Giving Reports Because you can't use delegated memory like cards or apps on tests, it seems like you have to memorize this whole thing. You certainly can, but I don't advise it. During school and your rookie year, you should spend AS MUCH of your STUDY time learning concepts, ACLS or BLS algorithm, and WHY you're doing what you're doing. Instead, I recommend learning these few, as they are most likely to be found on the tests and important in your report. GCS 3: Completely unresponsive.
There are a lot of test questions that really just want to know if you understand that 3 is the bottom. GCS 15: Almost all are GCS 15. You can practice saying this on all normal patients. Patient opens eyes, speech is fine, and moves on his own.
GCS 14: The patient is confused. This is another very common one to have on hand. (Dementia, intoxication, concussion?) GCS 13: Talking out of his head. (bleed?) GCS.