NCEPOD: Trauma - Who Cares? - London Health Programmes

CAdult and paediatricGlasgow Coma ScaleClassifi cation of severity of headinjury using GCSWhilst the individual components of the Glasgow ComaScale should be used in communication about individualpatients the use of the aggregate Glasgow Coma Score canbe useful for describing patient populations.The use of the aggregate score does allow the severity ofhead injury to be classifi ed into the following categories:Minor GCS 15Mild GCS 13-14Moderate GCS 9-12Severe GCS 3-8These classifi cations allow easy description of a head injuredpopulation and are used within this text.For some data presentation patients with GCS equal to3 have been separated out from the rest of the severehead injury group (GCS 4-8). This has been done to helpunderstand that data more easily as it is know that patientswith GCS equal to 3 have a much poorer prognosis than therest of the severe head injured group.137