A PCA Interpretation of the Glasgow Coma Scale in the Trauma Brain Injury PECARN Dataset

CT scan is strongly recommended for a patient affected by head trauma, but he/she must absorb a certain amount of radiations. For this reason, the physician tries to avoid such a practice for pediatric patients. The symptoms analysis, visual/tactile inspection, and reactions to appropriate stimuli from the physician could induce him/her to put the patient in a period of observation instead of performing an immediate CT scan. As a consequence, the correct evaluation of those symptoms is a crucial task. For this reason, the Pediatric Glasgow Coma Scale (PGCS) plays a fundamental role, because it is a numeric scale regarding the patient’s mental status. It is computed as the sum of the score f…