Session Information
Date: Wednesday, June 22, 2016
Session Title: Phenomenology and clinical assessment of movement disorders
Session Time: 12:00pm-1:30pm
Location: Exhibit Hall located in Hall B, Level 2
Objective: The aim of PDCS is to create a simple scale able to measure the severity of patients, taking into account cardinal motor, non motor and treatment complication symptoms.The new composite scale will not be a substitute for the other rating scales that remain fundamental to assess precisely, different aspects of the disease.
Background: Parkinson’s disease is a complex disease including motor and non motor symptoms. At the moment to assess the severity of the disease several rating scales such as UPDRS, NMS, UDysRS, mAIMS, MoCa are needed. In its preliminary version, the PDCS is composed of three domains containing 16 items, each item presenting five options of response. The absence of the symptom/disorder is scored 0 for all items, whereas the severity levels have a variable scoring scale denoting the relative importance and impact that each item supposedly has on patient’s condition.
Methods: Data have been obtained in 70 PD patients. The following variables were included: Age, gender, PD diagnosis, Hoehn and Yahr staging (HY), UPDRS, and PDCS. The plan of analysis includes a first approach to the acceptability of the scale, based on the scores distribution, and internal consistency.
Results: The correlation between respective sections of the PDCS and UPDRS was high (r >0.60), and moderate to highwith the HY staging. The motor components of the PDCS had a moderate association with the LEDD. The scores of the PDCS domains increased in parallel with the HY stages, although this increase was not significant for the non-motor symptoms. Internal validity was acceptable for the association between dimensions 1 and 2 (motor – non motor) and just under the threshold value for the rest.
Conclusions: In its current version and applied to a PD population in mild and moderate phases of the disease, the acceptability and hypotheses testing (convergent and known-groups validity) are satisfactory. The structure of the scale can be kept as in the present version.
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
F. Stocchi, P. Martinez-Martin, F.G. Radicati. A new tool to stage Parkinson’s disease PDCS (Parkinson’s disease composite scale): A pilot study on behalf of the European Parkinson’s disease association (EPDA) [abstract]. Mov Disord. 2016; 31 (suppl 2). https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/a-new-tool-to-stage-parkinsons-disease-pdcs-parkinsons-disease-composite-scale-a-pilot-study-on-behalf-of-the-european-parkinsons-disease-association-epda/. Accessed June 14, 2025.« Back to 2016 International Congress
MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/a-new-tool-to-stage-parkinsons-disease-pdcs-parkinsons-disease-composite-scale-a-pilot-study-on-behalf-of-the-european-parkinsons-disease-association-epda/