• With regard to following commands, the NIH Stroke Scale (NIHSS) assesses this level of consciousness in part 1C by asking the patient to do the following two things:

          1.  "Close your eyes and now open them."

          2.  "Make a fist and now open it."

• You may repeat the command no more than twice in order to avoid the bias of coaching the patient.

• It's fine to provide some prompting by performing the task yourself while asking the patient to do the same.
   
• This component of the NIHSS is scored as follows:

          0 = performs both tasks correctly.
          1 = performs one task corectly.
          2 = performs neither task correctly.