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Pain stimulus is a technique used by medical personnel for assessing the consciousness level of a person who is not responding to normal interaction, voice commands or gentle physical stimuli. It forms one part of a number of neurological assessments, including the first aid based AVPU scale and the more medically based Glasgow Coma Scale.
The objective of pain stimulus is to assess the level of consciousness of the patient by inducing vocalisation in an acceptable, consistent and replicable manner, and to this end, there are a limited number of techniques which are normally considered acceptable.
The pain stimulus can be applied centrally and/or peripherally, and there are benefits and drawbacks to each type of stimulus, depending on the type of patient and the response being assessed.