Spectrum and burden of movement disorder conditions in a tertiary movement disorders centre--a 10-year trend.
BACKGROUND
The precise burden of movement disorder conditions in our movement disorders centre is unclear. This study investigated the clinical burden of the Movement Disorders Clinic (MDC) in National Neuroscience Institute (NNI) over 10 years, aiming to identify the burden and spectrum of movement disorders conditions, to facilitate future resource allocation.


METHODS
We identified all patient visits from January 2002 to December 2011 at MDC from the Movement Disorders (MD) database using a standardised data collection form.


RESULTS
There was a linear increase in the clinical burden of MDC during this period. Parkinsonism comprised 71.6% of this clinical burden of which 84.8% were Parkinson's disease (PD) patients. Dividing the incident cases of MD conditions into two 5 years' blocks, the proportion of PD cases had not changed. There was significant increase in time to diagnosis for PD, hemifacial spasm and dystonia.


CONCLUSIONS
There was nearly 4-fold increase in the burden of movement disorders conditions in our tertiary condition within a decade. However, we did not find increasing proportion of PD cases which would be in line with an ageing population. This could be due to the fact that we are still in the early stages of an ageing population and we postulate that this proportion will go up in the future. The increased time to diagnosis may indicate increasing waiting time to see a movement disorders specialist and that current outreach effort to promote awareness may not be reaching its target audience. The upward trend of clinical burden indicates a need for increased resource allocation to cope with demand for movement disorders services.
Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
Kar Mun
KM
Eu
Louis C S
LC
Tan
Amanda R J
AR
Tan
Irene S H
IS
Seah
Puay Ngoh
PN
Lau
Wei
W
Li
Wing Lok
WL
Au
Kay Yaw
KY
Tay
D000368:Aged; D017281:Cost of Illness; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009069:Movement Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D062606:Tertiary Care Centers; D013997:Time Factors