Simplified Motor Score (SMS)
Simplifies assessment of head trauma patients compared to the GCS.
INSTRUCTIONS
Score the patient's best response.
Result:
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Dr. Steven Green
From the creator
- Why did you develop the Simplified Motor Scale? Was there a clinical experience that inspired you to create this tool for clinicians?
- The literature evidence is now overwhelming that the Glasgow Coma Scale is unreliable, inaccurate, and unnecessarily complex in that simpler scales are just as predictive. The SMS is the worthwhile part of the GCS statistically distilled out to remove the bloat, and with far better inter-rater reliability.
- What pearls, pitfalls and/or tips do you have for users of the Simplified Motor Scale? Are there cases in which it has been applied, interpreted, or used inappropriately?
- The simplicity of the score avoids the pitfalls of more complex scales.
- What recommendations do you have for health care providers once they have applied the Simplified Motor Scale? Are there any adjustments or updates you would make to the score given recent changes in medicine or imaging?
- No additional recommendations or updates.
- Other comments? Any new research or papers on this topic in the pipeline?
- A study in Annals of Emergency Medicine found that prehospital providers can only calculate the GCS correctly 40% of the time, underscoring its inability to be remembered and applied. (Feldman A, et. al. Randomized Controlled Trial of a Scoring Aid to Improve GCS Scoring by EMS Providers. Ann Emerg Med 2015) A potent argument for a simpler scale.
About the creator
Steven Green, MD, is a professor of emergency medicine and pediatrics at Loma Linda University, California. He currently is an attending physician in the emergency room and also conducts research on subjects like sedation and emergency protocols.
To view Dr. Steven Green's publications, visit PubMed
Content Contributors
- Daniel Runde, MD