title: Movement Disorder-Childhood Rating Scale: A Sensitive Tool to Evaluate Movement Disorders.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The Movement Disorder-Childhood Rating Scale represents a new tool for assessment of movement disorders during developmental age. In this study, we evaluated a cohort of 68 patients affected by various types of movement disorders and treated with specific drugs over one year to verify the usefulness of the Movement Disorder-Childhood Rating Scale.
  
  
  METHODS
  The participants were divided into two groups according to their ages (0-3 years; 4-18 years) and were evaluated using Movement Disorder-Childhood Rating Scale 0-3 or 4-18 at baseline (i.e., before starting pharmacological treatment [T0], after 6 months [T1], and after 12 months [T2] of treatment. Univariate repeated measures analysis of variance with a Greenhouse-Geisser correction by SPSS 20 was performed to analyze the scale responsiveness for the three indices (e.g., Index I, Index II, Global Index) in each group with time (T0, T1, and T2). In addition, the Bonferroni test was performed to identify the source of significant differences among means.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Significant differences were found between time points (T1 versus T0, T2 versus T0, and T2 versus T1) in both scales for all indexes with the exception for T2 versus T1 for Index II in both scales and for T2 versus T1 for the Global Index in the older age group. There was no significant correlation between observed changes in the scores and the age of the children, either for Movement Disorder-Childhood Rating Scale 0-3 or 4-18.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results suggest that Movement Disorder-Childhood Rating Scale is a suitable tool to detect changes independently from age and could be used as outcome measure for clinical trials.
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental Neuroscience, Istituto Di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico 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, Istituto Di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico 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, Istituto Di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico Fondazione Stella Maris, Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: Roberta
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Di Pietro
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental Neuroscience, Istituto Di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico Fondazione Stella Maris, Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: Manuela
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Casarano
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental Neuroscience, Istituto Di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico Fondazione Stella Maris, Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: Giuseppina
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Sgandurra
authors.affiliation: Department of Paediatric Neurology, Catholic University, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Domenico M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Romeo
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental Neuroscience, Istituto Di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico 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; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D009069:Movement Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000188:drug therapy; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D016896:Treatment Outcome
keywords: MD-CRS; movement disorders assessment tool; movement disorders treatment; pediatric movement disorder