Parkinson’s disease rating scales: a literature review

• Main Authors: Jamir Pitton Rissardo, Ana L Fornari Caprara
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications 2020-01-01
• Series: Annals of Movement Disorders
• Subjects: parkinson’s disease; rating; review; scale
• Online Access: http://www.aomd.in/article.asp?issn=2590-3446;year=2020;volume=3;issue=1;spage=3;epage=22;aulast=Pitton
• ISSN: 2590-3446; 2590-3454

A scale is critical for an objective and standardized process in which the purpose involves measuring differences between various individuals and determining priorities such as primary treatment goals. The aim of this study was to describe and analyze the most common Parkinson’s disease (PD) scales already used for research and clinical practice. We searched three databases in an attempt to locate existing scales about PD published until 2017 in electronic form, only the articles in English, Spanish, and Portuguese were reviewed. In sum, 114 scales were evaluated and divided into 6 types representing a general evaluation, such as staging, health-related quality of life, evaluation of the impact on activities of daily living, loss of functionality aimed at evaluation of the signs and symptoms of the disease, evaluation of functioning and disability loss, and other specific evaluations. Other specific evaluations include the following: fear of falling, depression, psychosis, sleep, apathy and anhedonia, anxiety, dysautonomia, dyskinesia, fatigue, motor fluctuations, psychosocial problems, secondary levodopa effects, Scales for Outcomes in Parkinson’s disease (SCOPA) studies, and cognitive impairment screening. When required, more specific characteristics of each scale were included: time to apply, the number of items, advantage, and disadvantage. In the literature, there are a large number of scales, but the majority of them were created for other diseases and only later studied for PD. Also, more than half have only a small number of studies with psychometric evaluation and others can be used for only a specific portion of the general population due to their specific feature assessment or language availability.