- Joined
- May 1, 2008
- Messages
- 16,682
- Reaction score
- 3,686
Re: OT: WR Chis Henry involved in very serious car accident
That's essentially correct. A GCS of 8 or below is an automatic indication for intubating a patient (i.e., putting in a breathing tube and putting them on what the lay press refers to as "life support"). But beyond that there can be a world of difference. Someone who comes in to an emergency room with a GCS of 5-6 and has a CT scan showing a focal bleed (subdural or epidural hematoma) could have a reasonably good prognosis with prompt surgical evacuation, whereas someone who comes in with a GCS of 3 and a diffuse edema pattern will generally do very poorly. Both the severity of the CT scan and the clinical exam are important in determining whether and how to treat. If the combination of the two is severe enough, the patient may be deemed "non-survivable" by a neuro surgeon.
Even in the worse cases it often takes a few days to progress to an actual diagnosis of "brain death". There is often secondary swelling of the injured brain which cuts of blood supply. Such patients often end up as organ donors.
It's too early to tell how bad Chris Henry's injury is, but the initial reports are not encouraging.
For those who are interested:
The Glasgow Coma Scale has three components:
Eyes, from spontaneous movement of eyes (4 points) down to not opening the eyes at all (1 point)
Verbal, from normal conversation (5 points) down to no verbalization at all (1 point)
Motor, from obeys commands (6 points), to responses to painful stimuli (5 points down to 2 points, depending on the exact movements), to no movement at all (1 point)
Someone walking around and functioning normally has a GCS scale of 15. Anything below 8 is considered a severe impairment of consciousness.
Glasgow Coma Scale - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
That's essentially correct. A GCS of 8 or below is an automatic indication for intubating a patient (i.e., putting in a breathing tube and putting them on what the lay press refers to as "life support"). But beyond that there can be a world of difference. Someone who comes in to an emergency room with a GCS of 5-6 and has a CT scan showing a focal bleed (subdural or epidural hematoma) could have a reasonably good prognosis with prompt surgical evacuation, whereas someone who comes in with a GCS of 3 and a diffuse edema pattern will generally do very poorly. Both the severity of the CT scan and the clinical exam are important in determining whether and how to treat. If the combination of the two is severe enough, the patient may be deemed "non-survivable" by a neuro surgeon.
Even in the worse cases it often takes a few days to progress to an actual diagnosis of "brain death". There is often secondary swelling of the injured brain which cuts of blood supply. Such patients often end up as organ donors.
It's too early to tell how bad Chris Henry's injury is, but the initial reports are not encouraging.