The Parkinson's Disease Activities of Daily Living Scale: a new simple and brief subjective measure of disability in Parkinson's disease.
OBJECTIVE
To develop a brief, valid and reliable self-report scale for the assessment of activities of daily living in Parkinson's disease (PD).


METHODS
Self-report questionnaire development.


METHODS
One hundred and seventy subjects with a diagnosis of clinically probable PD living in the community.


METHODS
The self-rating scale--Parkinson's Disease Activities of Daily Living Scale (PADLS), Webster Scale, CAMCOG neuropsychological test,15-item Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15) and the self-rated Parkinson's Disease Quality of Life (PDQL) questionnaire.


METHODS
The PADLS was initially validated and test-retest reliability assessed in a group of PD patients (n = 38). Next a convenience sample of 132 patients was drawn from a community-based PD register. Subjects were invited to complete the PADLS, PDQL, GDS-15, Webster scale and CAMCOG test.


RESULTS
The PADLS correlated significantly with increasing age, duration of illness, disease severity, increasing depression, impaired cognition and poorer health-related quality of life.


CONCLUSIONS
The PADLS was found to be a reliable and valid measure of ADL, demonstrating acceptable internal consistency and strong associations with existing measurers of disease severity, depression, cognitive screening and health-related quality of life. The PADLS allows patients to subjectively report the impact that PD has upon daily activities and will complement existing formal clinical measures in PD.
Hobson
J P
JP
University Department of Geriatric Medicine, Glan Clwyd Hospital Rhyl, North Wales, UK. adunorthwales@hotmail.com
Edwards
N I
NI
Meara
R J
RJ
D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000368:Aged; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000503:physiopathology*