[Reliability of the Japanese version of the Scale for the Assessment and Rating of Ataxia (SARA)].
BACKGROUND
The International Cooperative Ataxia Rating Scale (ICARS) is widely used as a scale for the assessment of the severity of cerebellar ataxia. However, this scale comprises several items; thus, making the application of this scale is not sufficiently practical to perform daily assessment of ataxic patients. A new rating scale--Scale for the Assessment and Rating of Ataxia (SARA)--was shown to provide highly reliable assessments; further, the scores on SARA correlated with the ICARS score and the Barthel index. After obtaining the permission, original SARA was translated into Japanese.


OBJECTIVE
To examine the reliability and internal consistency of the Japanese version of the SARA for the assessment of cerebellar ataxia in 66 patients with spinocerebellar degeneration.


RESULTS
Intraclass coefficients (ICC) were observed to be greater than 0.8 except in the case of the inter-rater "finger chase" and "fast alternating hand movement" tests.


CONCLUSIONS
The Japanese version of SARA is highly reliable and very useful for the assessment of cerebellar ataxia on a daily basis.
Sato
Kazunori
K
Neurology, Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine, Japan.
Yabe
Ichiro
I
Soma
Hiroyuki
H
Yasui
Kenichi
K
Ito
Mizuki
M
Shimohata
Takayoshi
T
Onodera
Osamu
O
Nakashima
Kenji
K
Sobue
Gen
G
Nishizawa
Masatoyo
M
Sasaki
Hidenao
H
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002524:Cerebellar Ataxia / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007391:International Cooperation; D007564:Japan; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009460:Neurologic Examination / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D055815:Young Adult