Method to Assess the Neurological Status:
World Health Organization (WHO) define Stroke as interruption of the blood supply to the brain, the effects of a stroke depend on which part of the brain is affected, severe stroke can cause sudden death (WHO, 2012). Stroke is a medical emergency where every minute is count. Accurate tool to assess the stroke severity in order to prevent complications and reduce mortality is very important. Rapid treatment reduces the damage in brain and prevents long lasting disabilities (National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, 2011). Developing a rapid and accurate tool for triage personnel to identify patients with stroke could decrease the time to physician evaluation for patients.
Now a day, there are a lot of tools which drive to confusions and skepticism among health care providers. There are several tools exist to assess stroke outcomes, but they have been used inconsistently among trials and the relevance of these tools may not be clear (Kasner S., 2006). This paper will explore literature in order to prove the following: 1) GCS is not a method to assess the neurological status in acute stroke patients. 2) NIHSS is a diagnosis tool and it is not suitable to be used for observing and measuring the stroke patient during the acute phase. 3) Design a tool to assess the neurological status for acute stroke patients and measure level of severity
We conclude that NIHSS is diagnostic tool that can be used at admission to diagnose the acute stroke patient. GCS is the tool used in St. Joseph Medical center, is not accurate method to assess the acute stroke patient. There are five essential elements that give prognostic information to measure level of severity and stroke patient prognosis during the acute phase. These elements are level of consciousness, papillary signs (pupil reaction and visual field), motor tone and strength, language, and sensory.