An aid to predicting prognosis in patients with non-traumatic coma at one day

Neurologists are often asked to give a prognosis of a patient in coma. Table 1 is designed to help provide guidance. The data are extracted from a series of 500 patients with coma from causes other than trauma and overdose.1 Patients with a Glasgow coma scale of less than 2:4:2 (eye opening; motor; verbal) for more than six hours were included. The data are presented to allow discrimination of patients with the poor outcomes at one year (death, vegetative state, and severe disability) from those with moderate or good outcomes as defined by the Glasgow outcome scale …