GCS Calculator (Glasgow Coma Scale)

About

This GCS calculator scores the Glasgow Coma Scale from eye opening, verbal response, and best motor response. The Glasgow Coma Scale grades level of consciousness after acute brain injury by summing three components — eye opening (1–4), verbal response (1–5), and best motor response (1–6) — for a total of 3 (deepest coma) to 15 (fully alert). It is the standard tool for initial assessment, serial monitoring, and communication in trauma, neurocritical care, and emergency medicine. Conventional severity bands are mild 13–15, moderate 9–12, and severe ≤8; a GCS ≤8 is the classic threshold at which protective airway reflexes are often lost and definitive airway protection is considered ('GCS 8, intubate' — a guide, not an absolute rule, and the decision remains clinical). Best practice is to report the three components separately (e.g., E3V4M5), because the breakdown carries information the single sum hides, and to record confounders such as sedation, intubation (verbal not testable), or aphasia. Since 2018 the GCS-Pupils (GCS-P) score extends the range at the severe end: GCS-P = GCS − Pupil Reactivity Score (0 if both pupils react to light, 1 if one is unreactive, 2 if neither), giving 1–15 and finer prognostic separation in traumatic brain injury. The GCS measures consciousness, not stroke-specific deficit — for acute stroke severity, the NIH Stroke Scale is the complementary tool.

Interpretation