title: Responsiveness of the MD-childhood rating scale in dyskinetic cerebral palsy patients undergoing anticholinergic treatment.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Movement Disorder-Childhood Rating Scale (MD-CRS) is a new tool for assessment of movement disorders during developmental age.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  In this study we evaluated a cohort of 47 patients affected by dyskinetic cerebral palsy and treated with anticholinergic drug (trihexyphenidyl) over one year in order to verify the responsiveness of the new scale.
  
  
  METHODS
  The participants were divided into two groups according to their age (0-3 years; 4-18 years) and were evaluated using MD-CRS 0-3 or MD-CRS 4-18 at baseline, i.e., before starting pharmacological treatment (T0), after 6 (T1) and 12 months (T2) of treatment. Univariate repeated measures ANOVA with a Greenhouse-Geisser correction was performed to analyse the scale responsiveness for the three indexes (e.g., Index I, Index II and Global Index) in each group with time (T0, T1 and T2). In addition, Bonferroni test was performed to identify the source of significant differences among means.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Significant differences were found between time points (T1 vs T0, T2 vs. T0 and T2 vs. T1) in both scales for all indexes with the exception for T2 vs. T1 for Index II in both scales and for T2 vs. T1 for the Global Index in the older age group. There was not significant correlation between observed changes in the scores and age of children, either for MD-CRS 0-3 or MD-CRS 4-18.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results suggest that MD-CRS is a suitable tool to detect changes and could be used as outcome measure for clinical trials. Further studies will be necessary to prove the efficacy of trihexyphenidyl for dyskinetic cerebral palsy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental Neuroscience, IRCCS Fondazione Stella Maris, Pisa, Italy. Electronic address: r.battini@fsm.unipi.it.
authors.forename: Roberta
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Battini
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental Neuroscience, IRCCS Fondazione Stella Maris, Pisa, Italy; Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: Manuela
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Casarano
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental Neuroscience, IRCCS Fondazione Stella Maris, Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: Giuseppina
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Sgandurra
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental Neuroscience, IRCCS Fondazione Stella Maris, Pisa, Italy; Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: Ilaria
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Olivieri
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental Neuroscience, IRCCS Fondazione Stella Maris, Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: Roberta
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Di Pietro
authors.affiliation: Department of Paediatric Neurology, Catholic University, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Domenico M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Romeo
authors.affiliation: Department of Paediatric Neurology, Catholic University, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Eugenio
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Mercuri
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental Neuroscience, IRCCS Fondazione Stella Maris, Pisa, Italy; Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: Giovanni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Cioni
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000367:Age Factors; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002547:Cerebral Palsy / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000188:drug therapy*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D018680:Cholinergic Antagonists / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care / Q000379:methods*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D014282:Trihexyphenidyl / Q000627:therapeutic use*
chemical_list: D018680:Cholinergic Antagonists; D014282:Trihexyphenidyl
keywords: Anticholinergic treatment; Dyskinetic cerebral palsy; MD assessment tool; MD-CRS; Paediatric movement disorder