The Glasgow Coma Scale assesses consciousness based on which components?

• A. Eye opening, verbal response, and motor response
• B. Mood, affect, and perception
• C. Memory, attention, and language
• D. Gait, balance, and coordination

Answer: (A)

Consciousness level is assessed by three response domains: eye opening, verbal response, and motor response. Eye opening shows how arousable a person is, ranging from spontaneous opening to opening in response to speech, to pain, or not at all. Verbal response reflects orientation and ability to produce organized speech, from oriented and coherent words to disorganized or incomprehensible sounds. Motor response measures the ability to follow commands and the presence of purposeful movement in response to stimuli, spanning obeying commands, localizing pain, withdrawing from pain, abnormal flexion, abnormal extension, or no movement. Each domain gets its own score, and the total sum (ranging from 3 to 15) provides a quick, standardized measure of overall consciousness.

This framework specifically targets arousal and the content of a person’s responses, which is what the Glasgow Coma Scale is designed to quantify. The other options describe mood/affect and perception, cognitive domains like memory, attention, and language, or motor/gait coordination—areas that reflect broader cognitive or neuromotor function but do not directly gauge level of consciousness in the same structured way.