BACKGROUND How to effectively use the finite resources of an intensive care unit (ICU) for neurosurgical patients is a critical decision-making process. Mortality prediction models are effective tools for allocating facilities. This study intended to distinguish the prediction power of the Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II (APACHE II), the Simplified Acute Physiology Score II (S...

OBJECTIVE To assess the theoretical and practical knowledge of the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) by trained Air-rescue physicians in Switzerland. METHODS Prospective anonymous observational study with a specially designed questionnaire. General knowledge of the GCS and its use in a clinical case were assessed. RESULTS From 130 questionnaires send out, 103 were returned (response rate of 79.2%) a...

BACKGROUND Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) is considered as a gold standard in estimating the prognosis of the comatose patient. The management of the patient relies heavily on this scale. The mechanism of injury must also be included in scoring of the GCS. Survival from strangulation is uncommon, and if it occurs, it is often associated with various complications such as neurological consequences. ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The aim of this study was to determine the 30-day mortality and morbidity of intracerebral hemorrhage in a large metropolitan population and to determine the most important predictors of 30-day outcome. METHODS We reviewed the medical records and computed tomographic films for all cases of spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage in Greater Cincinnati during 1988. Independe...

OBJECTIVE To determine if trauma center protocols affect the number of tests and consultations performed and the length of time spent in the emergency department or hospital. DESIGN A retrospective review and comparison of treatment for children with isolated head injury admitted to the emergency department before trauma center designation (group 1, 1985), and 5 years after implementation of ...

normal 0 false false false en-us x-none fa microsoftinternetexplorer4 background : erythropoietin (epo) as a major stimulator of red blood cell (rbc) production play a key role on brain protection and have a caring effect on neurons from hypoxic or traumatic injury. the objective of this trial was to study the safety and efficacy of recombinant human epo (rhepo) on level of consciousness and ot...

BACKGROUND Despite evidence from neuroimaging research, diagnosis and early prognosis in the vegetative (VS/UWS) and minimally conscious (MCS) states still depend on the observation of clinical signs of responsiveness. Multiple testing has documented a systematic variability during the day in the incidence of established signs of responsiveness. Spontaneous fluctuations of the Coma Recovery Sca...

It is time to abandon the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS). As discussed below, this ubiquitous neurologic scoring system is confusing, unreliable, and unnecessarily complex, and its manner of common clinical use is statistically unsound. Teasdale and Jennett devised the GCS in 1974 not for acute care, but rather for the “repeated bedside assessment” in a neurosurgical unit to detect “changing states” ...

STUDY OBJECTIVE To explore how Student's t test, which assumes normal errors, is affected by the nonnormal distribution of Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) scores. METHODS A sample of 145,295 GCS scores from the Pennsylvania Trauma Systems Foundation was assumed to represent the true GCS distribution. Four Monte Carlo simulations, each based on 40,000 replications, were conducted to approximate the d...