title: Quality of life scale in Parkinson's disease PDQ-39 - (Brazilian Portuguese version) to assess patients with and without levodopa motor fluctuation.
abstract: Quality of life (QoL) is an important treatment outcome indicator in Parkinson's disease (PD). The aim of this study is to assess the usefulness of the Parkinson's disease questionnaire--PDQ-39 (Brazilian Portuguese Version) in measuring QoL of PD patients with or without motor fluctuations. Fifty-six PD patients with mean disease duration of 7.4 years were assessed and 41 of them (73.3%) had motor fluctuations. The PDQ-39 has eight dimensions ranging from 0 to 100; being the higher the score, the worse the QoL. Comparing groups with and without motor fluctuations showed that the dimensions mobility, activities of daily living (ADL), communication and bodily discomfort scored higher in the fluctuating group. There was a tendency to see that the higher the Hoehn and Yahr (HY) scale stages, the higher the PDQ-39 scores. Patients suffering from the disease for more than five years had worse PDQ-39 scores only in the items ADL and communication, when compared with those with the disease for < 5 years. The PDQ-39 is an instrument that detects decrease in QoL of PD patients and the presence of motor fluctuations predicts QoL reduction.
authors.affiliation: Movement Disorders Unit, Department of Neurology, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil. renatags18@hotmail.com
authors.forename: Renata Guzzo
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: Souza
authors.forename: Vanderci
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Borges
authors.forename: Sonia Maria Cesar de Azevedo
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Silva
authors.forename: Henrique Ballalai
authors.initials: HB
authors.lastname: Ferraz
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000978:Antiparkinson Agents / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000627:therapeutic use; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007980:Levodopa / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000627:therapeutic use; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009069:Movement Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology*; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000523:psychology*; D011788:Quality of Life; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D018434:Sickness Impact Profile; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
chemical_list: D000978:Antiparkinson Agents; D007980:Levodopa