Journal of trauma nursing : the official journal of the Society of Trauma Nurses
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End-of-life care for trauma patients is unique in that clinicians rarely have the advantage of knowing victims prior to the event. In this setting, the unfamiliarity with patients' wishes and values, the critical nature of the injury, the overwhelming feelings of guilt that families often experience, the suddenness and acuity of the crisis, and the need to make life-and-death decisions, can result in end-of-life care scenarios that are challenging to manage and often difficult to experience. This article describes a plan to develop, implement, and test a best practice model of end-of-life care for trauma victims and their families.
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The Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) is an easy to use tool for assessing neurological function and brain injury in comatose patients particularly in acute stages of traumatic injury or illness. Due to the simplicity of the scale, however, proper training is often overlooked limiting its usefulness. This manuscript describes the basic components of the GCS and the proper scoring method to elicit accurate evaluations.