What is the Glascow Coma Scale?
In 1974, Graham Teasdale and Bryan J. Jennett, neurosurgery professors at the University of Glascow (Scotland) came up with this scale with the purpose of providing an objective and reliable way of gauging the conscious state of a person with a head injury. The patient’s results are correlated against a grading scale, and the results give doctors a good indication about the severity of a traumatic brain injury. The scale has three different tests: eye, verbal and motor. Each function has a separate numbered scale that ranges from one to six (one being the most severe and six being the mildest). Those three numbers are then combined for a final grade. There are four grades of eye response: • Eyes don’t open • Eyes respond as a result of pain • Speech causes eyes to open • Eyes operate on their own There are five grades of verbal response: • No verbal response at all • Sounds – moans, but not necessarily words • Inappropriate words • Patient responds to questions, but with some confusion
