Centre for Policy on Ageing



Measuring symptom change in patients with Parkinson's disease
Author(s)	John E Harrison, Sarah Preston, Stavia B Blunt
Journal title	Age and Ageing, vol 29, no 1, January 2000
Pages	pp 41-46
Keywords	Parkinson's disease ; Symptoms ; Mobility ; Self care capacity ; Evaluation.
Annotation	The 39-item Parkinson's disease questionnaire (PDQ-39) is more sensitive to functional change than other measures of health and disability. The authors compared the relative sensitivity to change of the PDQ-39, the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS) disability instrument, and the GHQ-28 General Health Questionnaire in 67 Parkinson's disease (PD) patients over 18 months. The OPCS disability instrument and the GHQ-28 recorded no significant change, but the PDQ-39 showed marked changes in levels of functioning. Analysis of changes on the PDQ-39 subscales and concurrent validity data for several subscales showed concurrent validity with the Beck depression and anxiety inventories, the Barthel index and the Royal Postgraduate Medical School severity scale. There was a high level of concurrent validity for all comparisons except for the Barthel index. The PDQ-39 is thus a sensitive tool for monitoring change in patients with PD, and has high levels of concurrent validity with established measures of mood and motor function. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-000203212 A
Classmark	CR6: CT: C4: CA: 4C
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing

...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.