title: Quality of life and disability assessment in neuropathy: a multicentre study.
abstract: Neuropathy can severely affect patients' quality of life (QoL), causing disability and decreased motor efficiency while modifying their perception of the external environment. We performed a large, multi-perspective, and multi-measurement assessment using validated clinical measurements of disability and QoL. With regard to general disability, more than 10% of patients needed assistance to walk. With regard to arm disability, about 10% of patients had severe disability defined as impairment in carrying out simple tasks. General disability was similar both in polyneuropathic and multi-neuropathic groups, but arm disability appeared more severe in multi-neuropathic patients. QoL profiles were highly deteriorated in our sample with respect to the Italian normative sample. All age brackets were highly impaired except for older patients for whom the QoL picture was only mildly impaired with respect to Italian norms. We believe that our study provides reliable data on QoL in patients with neuropathies and that it may represent a quantitative step forward in understanding the disability of patients with neuropathy.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neurology, Università Cattolica, Rome, Italy. lpadua@rm.unicatt.it
authors.forename: Luca
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Padua
authors.forename: Angelo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Schenone
authors.forename: Irene
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Aprile
authors.forename: Luana
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Benedetti
authors.forename: Pietro
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Caliandro
authors.forename: Pietro
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Tonali
authors.forename: Eduardo Nobile
authors.initials: EN
authors.lastname: Orazio
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010523:Peripheral Nervous System Diseases / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires