What Is An Injury Severity Score?

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WhaT Is AN Injury Severity Score?

“The Injury Severity Score (ISS) is an established medical score to assess trauma severity. It correlates with mortality, morbidity and hospitalization time after trauma. It is used to define the term major trauma. A major trauma (or polytrauma) is defined as the Injury Severity Score being greater than 15. Wikipedia”
TBI Clinic Can Treat Frontal Injuries

 The Injury Severity Scale is a metric that helps to describe the score of the severity of an injury. The Injury Severity Score (ISS) is a measure of the injury severity (i.e. the degree to which an injury affects a person’s health). The ISS is based on five factors:

The ISS has main components:

  1. Time
  2. Location
  3. Type of Injury
  4. Level of Acuity, and 
  5. Severity of Injury  

  How to Interpret the Injury Severity Score?

The Injury Severity Score (ISS) is a widely used and highly accurate measure of the severity of an injury. The ISS score is based on the following four key injury criteria:

  1. Brace/Tourniquet reduction: This score is determined by measuring the time from when the compressions are applied to when the patient awakens from bracing. A score of 1 indicates a time of <5 min; 2=5-10 min; 3=10-15 min; and 4= >15 min.
  2. Time to Resuscitation: A score of 1 indicates that it takes less than 10 minutes for the patient to be resuscitated, 2=10-15 minutes, 3=20-30 minutes, & 4= >30 minutes.
  3. Time to Airway Access: A score of 1 indicates that it takes less than 10 minutes for the patient to have access to a suction device or airway, 2=10-15 minutes, 3=20-30 minutes, & 4= >30 minutes.
  4. Pain Severity Score: A score of 1 means there is no pain at all and can be increased up to 5 if the patient ha