Scoring
1. Eye Opening
  1. Spontaneous: 4
  2. To speech: 3
  3. To pain: 2
  4. No Response: 1
2. Best Verbal Response
  1. Oriented (Infant coos or babbles): 5
  2. Confused (Infant irritable cries): 4
  3. Inappropriate words (Infant Cries to pain): 3
  4. Incomprehensible sounds (Infant Moans to pain): 2
  5. No Response: 1
3. Best Motor Response
  1. Obeys (Infant moves spontaneous/purposefully): 6
  2. Localizes (infant withdraws to touch): 5
  3. Withdraws to pain: 4
  4. Abnormal Flexion to pain (Decorticate): 3
  5. Extensor Response to pain (Decerebrate): 2
  6. No Response: 1
Interpretation
1. Total: 3-15
2. Minor Head Injury: 13-15
3. Moderate Head Injury: 9-12
4. Severe Head Injury (Coma): <= 8
  1. Confers Significant Mortality Risk <= 8
References
1. Morray (1984) Crit Care Med 12:1018
2. Teasdale (1974) Lancet 2:81
3. Davis (1987) in Rogers, Textbook of Ped Int Care

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This page was written by Scott Moses, MD. This page was last revised before 5/10/08, prior to consistent tracking of revision date. This page was last published on 5/10/2008. Please send comments and questions to the editor. Contact information may be found on the page About the Family Practice Notebook. These pages are best viewed with Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0.