A child cries to painful stimuli, withdraws from pain, and opens the eyes to painful stimuli. What is the Glasgow Coma Scale score?

A child cries to painful stimuli, withdraws from pain, and opens the eyes to painful stimuli. What is the Glasgow Coma Scale score?

• A. 3
• B. 6
• C. 9
• D. 12

Answer: (C)

Glasgow Coma Scale uses three components—eye opening, verbal response, and motor response—to gauge level of consciousness. Eye opening to painful stimuli is scored as 2. Verbal response in this scenario is best mapped to crying as a vocalization that cannot be understood, which for this item is scored as 3 (inappropriate words). Motor response is withdrawal from pain, which is scored as 4. Adding them together gives 2 + 3 + 4 = 9. Hence the score is nine. Note that some pediatric interpretations might categorize crying differently (e.g., as incomprehensible sounds, which would be 2), but the scoring set here uses 3 for the verbal response described.

Glasgow Coma Scale uses three components—eye opening, verbal response, and motor response—to gauge level of consciousness. Eye opening to painful stimuli is scored as 2. Verbal response in this scenario is best mapped to crying as a vocalization that cannot be understood, which for this item is scored as 3 (inappropriate words). Motor response is withdrawal from pain, which is scored as 4. Adding them together gives 2 + 3 + 4 = 9. Hence the score is nine. Note that some pediatric interpretations might categorize crying differently (e.g., as incomprehensible sounds, which would be 2), but the scoring set here uses 3 for the verbal response described.