Health-related quality of life in Parkinson's disease: outcomes of the therapeutic interventions.
Main reasons for measuring health-related quality of life (QoL) are: 1) the unique information supplied by QoL measures, 2) the relationship between perceived health and use of resources and 3) the usefulness for evaluation of outcome and decision making. As Parkinson's disease impacts strongly on the life of patients, it is important to assess the effect of the interventions not only on clinical aspects, but also from the point of view of the perceived health state. The QoL conceptual framework, the type of tools for measuring QoL and the trials that applied QoL measures as outcome variables in PD are reviewed in this article.
Martínez-Martín
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Section of Neuroepidemiology, Area de Epidemiología Aplicada, Centro Nacional de Epidemiología, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, C/Sinesio Delgado 4, 28029 - Madrid, Spain. pmartinez@isciii.es