Glascow Coma Scale

[Brevi]

Hey guys,

Here is a video I wanted to share with you all. I will be sharing it with any students that come my way

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gL88Lgk8yto

 

[teedubbyaw]

Color me dumb, but I don't see any tricks there. It's a bit easier to remember 4,5,6 instead of associated 4 with "4 eyes,"etc.

 

[Brevi]

I would agree it's not a trick.

 

[Underoath87]

Our paper PCR's have the GCS criteria plainly laid out with check boxes, so I guess I've taken that for granted (not that it should be hard to memorize).

 

[jrm818]

For however many years I've never managed to permanently memorize that stupid rating scale. If I try real hard I could probably come up with it, but it will probably take me a good couple of minutes.

why do we use it again?

 

[medicdan]

For however many years I've never managed to permanently memorize that stupid rating scale. If I try real hard I could probably come up with it, but it will probably take me a good couple of minutes.

why do we use it again?

Initially, as a quantifiable measure of the physiological status of head injury patients, but expanded for use beyond that, and to questionable value.

 

[Ridryder911]

I got to meet Dr. Bryan Jennett (inventor of GLASCOW) many years ago at a National EMS Conference, interesting English/Scottish fellow. What I found funny was that many pronounce it as Glass-co but he pronounce as it was written Glass-cow..

Just alike any other scale.. TRISS (trauma injury severity scale) and many others are just statistics. GLASCOW has a place in helping predicting outcomes in neuro. It is not a sure thing like any other scales. Ironically I heard a physician at a ASLS course that was on the research and develop team of the Cincinnati Stroke Scale; he discussed it was never developed for criteria to evaluate or screen potential stroke patients rather as those that already had suffered a CVA yet it is held high in many organizations and used daily...

I believe such scales and scores are great tools... adjuncts.. not cut into stone though. Nothing is better than good clinical assessments/experience.

R/r 911

 

[Underoath87]

I got to meet Dr. Bryan Jennett (inventor of GLASCOW) many years ago at a National EMS Conference, interesting English/Scottish fellow. What I found funny was that many pronounce it as Glass-co but he pronounce as it was written Glass-cow..

It is the Glasgow coma scale; developed in Glasgow, Scotland (where Jennett was a professor of neurosurgery at the University of Glasgow's Institute of Neurological Sciences at the city's Southern General Hospital).

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11852950
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow_Coma_Scale

 

[jrm818]

Yea, I was just being snarky, I do know the intent of the GCS...and as mentioned it's not necessarily how it's used now.

That said, it is true that I have problems remembering it, even with the picture technique in the video above - and it's apparently not just me:

"The GCS is not consistently remembered. To be accurately
and consistently applied, a clinical scale must be easy to use and
remember. The GCS is widely perceived as complicated14,19-25
and takes more than just a few seconds to evaluate. In one
study, only 15% of military physicians could correctly calculate
the GCS, despite all of them being familiar with the scale and
most having completed the advanced trauma life support
course.21A second report observed that less than half (48%) of
clinicians correctly scored the GCS in a written clinical scenario;
with neurosurgeons correct just 56% of the time"

from an editorial in annals of EM reproduced here, which does a very good job of laying out the problems, including its poor value in predicting outcome: http://dallenfarmer.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/1-s2.0-S019606441100655X-main.pdf

 

[Scott33]

I got to meet Dr. Bryan Jennett (inventor of GLASCOW) many years ago at a National EMS Conference, interesting English/Scottish fellow. What I found funny was that many pronounce it as Glass-co but he pronounce as it was written Glass-cow.

Minor point but one I can't let slip. It is pronounced Glazz-go and spelled Glasgow - as in the city of the same name - the one I lived in for over 30 years.

Thank god Dr Jennett didn't go to Edinburgh university. I have heard all sorts of mispronunciations of that word.