Pain assessment with the revised nociception coma scale and outcomes of patients with unresponsive wakefulness syndrome: results from a pilot study.

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate whether standardized responses to nociceptive pain, assessed with the revised Nociception Coma Scale (NCS-R), were correlated with the outcomes of patients with unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (UWS) 6months after admission to a rehabilitation department. We recruited 24 consecutive patients with UWS. Patients' consciousness levels were assessed with the revised Coma Recovery Scale (CRS-R) at admission and 6months later, and their CRS-R scores were correlated with the NCS-R scores at admission. Ten of the 24 patients with UWS recovered consciousness after 6months. The NCS-R score at admission was correlated with the CRS-R score at admission (P = 0.02), but not after 6months (P = 0.6). Patients with and without consciousness improvement after 6months showed no significant difference in the NCS-R total score and sub-scores at admission (P values > 0.05). In conclusion, the correlation between NCS-R and CRS-R scores at admission suggests that the standardized assessment of pain parallels patients' levels of consciousness, and may be helpful in the clinical evaluation of patients with UWS. Pain response assessed with the NCS-R was not related to the 6-month outcomes of patients with UWS.