Abstract
Recently several coma scales have been advocated in assessing impaired consciousness and have been parallely used with such traditional but ambiguous terms as coma, stupor, somnolence and so on. In this study the usefulness of Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) was compared with that of Edinburgh Coma Scale (E2CS).
The levels of E2CS was verified to have quite a good correlation with mortality and morbidity of the patients. On the other hand, correlation between outcome and the "scores" of GCS was apparently poorer exhibiting many parts of irregularity. The author showed that components of the GCS, namely the verbal, eye opening and motor response scales, if compared separately, did show a good correlation with the final outcome of the patients. It is futile, however, to depend on "scoring" system which simply add up numbers given to an order of each different functions. it is concluded that the E2CS is a clinically more convenient and useful scale in assessing impaired consciousness than the GCS.
