Often times on television and in movies, you’ll hear a medical character exclaim, “His GCS is 5!” or some other variation. What is this score? What does it mean for the patient?

The Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS scale) is one way to gauge the significance of brain injury. There are three components to the measurement. Eye Opening. Verbal Response. Best Motor Response. In general, the highest score is 15. The lowest score is 3. You can be dead and still score a 3 so the higher the score the better.

Eye opening looks at four components and each is given a score:
4: The patient opens their eyes spontaneously.
3: The patient opens their eyes after being spoken or shouted to.
2: The patient opens their eyes to a painful stimulus.
1: No eye opening at all.

Verbal response looks at five components:
5: The patient knows person, time and place.
4: The patient can speak but is not oriented.
3: Speaks unintelligibly.
2: Moaning.
1: No verbal response.

Best motor response looks at six components:
6: The patient can obey a two part request such as touch your nose and then your shoulder.
5: The patient moves to push away a stimulus. For instance, if I’m starting an IV in your left hand, you take your right hand to push it away. This is called localizing pain and the patient usually needs to move across their midline or above their clavicle (if the stimulus is placed to the head) to score here.
4:  Pulls extremity away from pain.
3: Abnormal flexion.  Also referred to as decorticate posturing.
2: Abnormal extension. Also referred to as decerebrate posturing.
1. No motor response.

Initially, we might look at the overall score to determine whether or not a patient needs to be placed on a breathing machine. Generally, a score equal or less than eight is used as a cut off point. The lower the initial score, the more likely the patient will be intubated. Over the long term, the GCS can be used to trend improving or worsening neurological status.

Have you ever heard this scale used on television or in a movie?