A 31-year-old patient has been in the ICU on a ventilator for 24 hours after a motor vehicle accident. The patient does not open his eyes to any stimulus and has no verbal or motor response. The Glasgow Coma Scale corresponding to this patient would be

A 31-year-old patient has been in the ICU on a ventilator for 24 hours after a motor vehicle accident. The patient does not open his eyes to any stimulus and has no verbal or motor response. The Glasgow Coma Scale corresponding to this patient would be

• A. 0
• B. 1
• C. 2
• D. 3

Answer: (D)

Glasgow Coma Scale measures level of consciousness by three parts: eye opening (1–4), verbal response (1–5), and motor response (1–6). A patient who does not open eyes to any stimulus gets eye opening = 1. If there is no verbal output, the verbal score is 1 (in intubated patients this is often written as 1T to indicate the ventilator prevents speech). No motor response to commands or pain yields motor = 1. Adding them gives 1 + 1 + 1 = 3. Therefore, the GCS is 3 (with the verbal component typically noted as 1T if intubated).

Glasgow Coma Scale measures level of consciousness by three parts: eye opening (1–4), verbal response (1–5), and motor response (1–6). A patient who does not open eyes to any stimulus gets eye opening = 1. If there is no verbal output, the verbal score is 1 (in intubated patients this is often written as 1T to indicate the ventilator prevents speech). No motor response to commands or pain yields motor = 1. Adding them gives 1 + 1 + 1 = 3. Therefore, the GCS is 3 (with the verbal component typically noted as 1T if intubated).