Linking To And Excerpting From PrimaryCare Notebook “Gorelick scale for assessment of dehydration in children”

Today, I review, link to, and excerpt from PrimaryCare Notebook‘s Gorelick scale for assessment of dehydration in children.

All that follows is from the above resource.

Last reviewed Jan 1, 2018

Authoring team

the Gorelick scale for dehydartion

Used in children between 1 month and 5 years (1)

characteristic	no or minimal dehydration	moderate to severe dehydration
general appearance	alert	restless, lethargic, unconscious
capillary refill	normal	prolonged or minimal
tears	present	absent
mucous membrane	moist	dry, very dry
eyes	normal	sunken; deeply sunken
breathing	present	deep; deep and rapid
quality of pulses	normal	thready; weak or impalpable
skin elasticity	instant recoil	recoil slowly; recoil > 2 s
heart rate	normal	tachycardia
urine output	normal	reduced; not passed in many hours

Scoring:

• 4 point scale (italics)
  • >= 2 Clinical Signs (4 pt) >= 5% body weight from baseline
  • >= 3 Clinical Signs (4 pt) >= 10% body weight from baseline
• 10 point scale (all signs/symptoms)
  • >= 3 Clinical Signs >=5% body weight from baseline
  • >= 7 Clinical Signs >=10% body weight from baseline (1)

Reference:

• (1) Pringle K et al.Comparing the accuracy of the three popular clinical dehydration scales in children with diarrhea. Int J Emerg Med. 2011;4:58