Friday, October 26, 2007

Wong-Baker FACES

I happened to see a Wong-Baker FACES pain scale chart today. The one I saw was customized locally (from memory):

  • 0 - calm, relaxed, asleep
  • 3 - complains of pain but can manage it, some movement in response
  • 5 - moans, reacts to pain stimuli
  • 8 - constant moaning and movement
  • 10 - intolerable; constant movement
Where on this scale does torture lie? The Bushists have said that only pain comparable to major organ failure qualifies. Is that a 10? Or is 10 too low?

Update (2/24/09): Since this is one of my perennial search engine hits, it behooves me to maintain it, and the image I link to above is broken. Here's another and another, although these use a 0 to 5 scale instead of 0 to 10, but that does appear to be more common.

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