Consciousness Flashcards
What is consciousness?
- wakefullness = able to determine they are awake of asleep (wake-sleep cycle)
- aware = know that you exist (I & me)
What is a coma, which is greek for deep sleep?
- state of unrousable unresponsiveness
- > 6 hours
What is a key feature of consciousness that we can physically see in a patient?
1 - muscle movements
2 - eyes open
3 - reflexes
4 - urination
2 - eyes open
- requires cognitive thought that they are awake & motor arousal required to open eyes
A key feature of consciousness is the ability to sense sensory inputs. What are the 3 forms of this?
1 - External (5 senses, smell, sight etc…)
2 - Interoception (internal feelings of the body, I feel full or thirsty for example)
3 - Emotions
A key feature of consciousness is the ability to have an effect (acute mood, happy, sad etc..) and have controlled outputs. What are the 4 controlled outputs?
1 - motor (moving hand, smiling etc..)
2 - attention (paying attention to someone)
3 - cognition (interacting with someone)
4 - emotional
There is a scale of Unconsciousness, ranging from sleep to brain stem death. What is locked in syndrome?
1 - patients muscles and joints are locked in same position
2 - patient jaw is locked and they are unable to speak
3 - complete paralysis of voluntary muscles, but eyes are unaffected
4 - systematic pain causing coma
3 - complete paralysis of voluntary muscles, but eyes are unaffected
- a rare neurological disorder
Is a coma always pathological?
- yes
Are all comas permanent?
- no
- can be reversible or irreversible
What are the 2 major group classifications of comas?
1 - neurological and metabolic
2 - neurological and traumatic
3 - traumatic and metabolic
4 - metabolic and toxic
1 - neurological and metabolic
The 2 major group classifications of comas are neurological and metabolic. What are the 3 most common causes of neurological comas?
1 - trauma, infection, cerebrovascular impairment
2 - DVT, trauma, infection
3 - trauma, cerebrovascular impairment, DVT
4 - trauma, herpes virus, cerebrovascular impairment
1 - trauma, infection, cerebrovascular impairment
The 2 major groups of classifications of comas are neurological and metabolic. What are the 3 most common causes of metabolic comas?
1 - hypoglycaemia
2 - hypoxia
3 - drugs and toxins
Tools to measure consciousness are on a scale between normal consciousness and coma. What is the most commonly used tool for this?
- Glasgow coma scale (1974)
The Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) is the main tool we need to be aware of that measures a patients consciousness. What does the GCS measure?
- sensori-motor stimulus and responses
- combining senses with actions
The Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) is the main tool we need to be aware of that measures a patients consciousness. The GCS measures sensori-motor stimulus and responses, which is essentially the ability to combine senses with actions. The investigator will provide a stimulus and then assesses the response. What are the 5 things we are looking for when we provide a stimulus?
1 - eyes (open or closed)
2 - response to verbal and physical stimulus (pain etc)
3 - protective movements and postures
4 - spontaneous and voluntary movements
5 - voice
The Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) provides a score on the level of consciousness of the patient. When assessing a patient using the GCS, do we just do one stimulus for each of the 5 senses or would we do multiple, and would we take the average or the best response?
- multiple attempts at stimulating the patient
- record the best response
- GCS provides a score
The Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) provides a score on the level of consciousness of the patient. What is the lowest score you can get on the GCS?
1 - 0
2 - 3
3 - 5
4 - 6
Lowest score: 3
- the lowest score in all 3 sections of the GCS (eyes opening, verbal and motor response is 1)
- a response of 1 in all 3 sections of the GCS is no response