Making Sense of Medical Lingo

Posted in Personal Injury on January 25, 2016

What does AAOX3 stand for?
If you are injured in car wreck, odds are the ambulance personnel will immediately start asking you questions. Often, medical responders to your accident will be using medical lingo. Even though you may be able to hear responders speaking about you, you may not understand what they are saying. A common term that you may hear or see in medical records is “AAOX3”, which stands for Alert and Oriented to Person, Place and Time.
Medical responders use AA0X3 to determine your level of awareness by asking:
“What is your name?” which will demonstrate your alertness to Person,
“Do you know where you are?” to determine if you are alert to Place; and
“What day is it?” to show your awareness of Time.
An additional indicator that may be referred to (AAOX4), is Event, “Do you know what happened?”
These questions are important in head injury and concussion cases. The answers help emergency responders find out what happened and also give health care providers insight into whether you blacked out or sustained a head injury in the accident. If you are ever in an accident, our attorneys will be your voice to ensure you not only understand what is happening with your claim but that will also recover a fair settlement in light of your injuries.