What is the pediatric GCS score for a child who cries to pain?

To understand the pediatric Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) scoring system, it's essential to know how the scale evaluates a child's responsiveness based on three parameters: eye opening, verbal response, and motor response. The total score ranges from 3 to 15, with lower scores indicating a more severe impairment of consciousness.

In this scenario, the child who cries to pain exhibits a specific behavioral response. For the verbal response component, "cries to pain" is a clear indication that the child is reacting, albeit in a limited manner, which typically scores as a 2 on the verbal section of the GCS. The scores for verbal response are as follows:

• 5: Oriented,

• 4: Confused,

• 3: Inappropriate responses,

• 2: Incomprehensible sounds (which in this case would be crying),

• 1: No verbal response.

As the child does not fully lose consciousness but does not respond verbally in a coherent way, the score for only the verbal response would indeed be 2.

Combining this with the other GCS components, if the eye opening and motor response were to be assessed separately, they could contribute to a higher score. However, specifically for just the