Alertness is a basic arousal process allowing the patient to respond to stimuli in the environment. The Rancho Los Amigos scale is probably the most well known approach to quantifying level of consciousness in the patient with neurologic impairments. This scale is shown in Assessment Tool 5.3. Assessment of level of consciousness, arousal, or state is an essential part of assessing motor control, since motor behavior is very dependent on arousal level (Duncan & Badke, 1987).