Cervical Spine Clearance in Obtunded Trauma Patients

All OBTPs with gross movement of all four extremities admitted to MetroHealth Medical Center who underwent a CT CS at MHMC between October 2006 and September 2008 will be included. Prospective data will be collected on these patients including age, gender, mechanism of injury, Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) on admission, results of CT CS, GCS at the time of collar clearance, day of collar clearance, collar complications, date of reexamination, and results of reexamination. We will define an obtunded patient as a patient who was unable to reliably describe the presence or absence of CS symptoms in the opinion of the examining physician. Patients needed to have gross movement of all four extremities to be included in the study. We defined cervical collar complications as skin breakdown identified either by the skin care team during weekly rounds in the intensive care unit or by the treating physician at any time.