The Relationship between the Level of Consciousness and Time of Tracheotomy in Patients with Head Trauma

The purpose of this study was to compare the consciousness level based on time of tracheotomy in patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI).
71 TBI patients that had Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) lower or equal to 8 on admission were studied. All patients had received percutaneous dilational tracheostomy (PDT). They were placed in two groups of early (the first week) or late (after the first week) tracheostomy. Consciousness level of patients was measured according to GCS on admission and six times until 15th day. The data for analysis were entered into SPSS software version 16.
Comparing the level of consciousness in both groups showed that the average level of consciousness of patients on days 6th , 9th , 12th and 15th after tracheotomy was higher in early than in late tracheostomy group. The observed differences in measuring times were not statistically significant (p>0.05). The level of consciousness of patients in each group significantly increased over time (p Although no statistically significant difference was observed in the level of consciousness between early and late tracheostomy groups, the level of consciousness in early tracheostomy was higher than that of late tracheotomy patients. This can be considered clinically significant in caring the patients.