Session Information
Date: Wednesday, June 7, 2017
Session Title: Rating Scales
Session Time: 1:15pm-2:45pm
Location: Exhibit Hall C
Objective: To provide and validate a French translation of the MDT-PD in the Luxembourgish multilingual population, in terms of linguistic, test-retest-, language reliability and sensitivity.
Background: The MDT-PD, developed and validated in German [1], is a highly sensitive and specific self-reported screening questionnaire to detect early oropharyngeal symptoms and aspiration risk in patients with idiopathic Parkinson’s disease (IPD).
Methods: All subjects are recruited in the context of HELP-PD, an observational non-interventional longitudinal cohort study.
Linguistic validation: the German MDT-PD was translated into French with a forward-backward method, by 4 translators. 7 French speaking patients with parkinsonism, completed the translated version with the “thinking aloud” method. Patients’ comments were recorded and analyzed qualitatively.
Psychometric and clinical validation: IPD patients with H&Y≥2, MoCA>17, and French and German, as 2 of their 3 best languages will perform the MDT-PD twice in French and once in German with a 5-7 days interval for each. Patients with a score ≥3.65 will undergo a clinical examination and a fiberoptic endoscopic evaluation of swallowing (FEES) ≤21 days after the first MDT-PD completion.
Sample size calculation [2] estimated a minimum of 40 patients. The evaluation of the agreement between both tests will be performed with a Kappa test. The recruitment progress of HELP-PD enables us to apply this procedure within 3 months.
Results: All subjects (IPD: n=6, PSP: n=1, age: 66.4±11.5, UPDRS: 35.4±13, H&Y: 2.2±0.7 MoCA: 25.1±2.6) completed the French MDT-PD successfully. Items 3, 19 and 24 were commented by in total 2 patients. Comments concerned scaling of the trouble, but not the interpretation of the item. Any modification to the initial version was required.
It was agreed on the proposed translation for psychometric and clinical validation in 40 IPD patients. We expect similar scores at the 3 test-points. Clinical and FEES scores are expected to correlate with MDT-PD scores and will be presented.
Conclusions: The linguistic validation and statistics estimations enable us to perform the psychometric and clinical validation. The validated French MDT-PD makes a non-invasive tool for early detection and implementation of novel prevention strategies, accessible to the French population.
References: 1. Simons JA, Fietzek UM, Waldmann A, Warnecke T, Schuster T, Ceballos-Baumann AO (2014) Development and validation of a new screening questionnaire for dysphagia in early stages of Parkinson’s disease. Parkinsonism Relat Disord 20: 992-998.
2. Hong H, Choi Y, Hahn S, Park SK, Park BJ (2014) Nomogram for sample size calculation on a straightforward basis for the kappa statistic. Ann Epidemiol 24: 673-680.
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
G. Hipp, M. Vaillant, M. Gantenbein, M. Kerschenmeyer, P. Kolber, C. Stallinger, K. Roomp, L. Longhino, A. Schweicher, R. Krüger, J. Simons. The French version of the Munich Dysphagia Test-Parkinson’s disease (MDT-PD): Translation and validation in a multilingual population of the Luxembourg Parkinson’s Study (HELP-PD). [abstract]. Mov Disord. 2017; 32 (suppl 2). https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/the-french-version-of-the-munich-dysphagia-test-parkinsons-disease-mdt-pd-translation-and-validation-in-a-multilingual-population-of-the-luxembourg-parkinsons-study-help-pd/. Accessed July 9, 2025.« Back to 2017 International Congress
MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/the-french-version-of-the-munich-dysphagia-test-parkinsons-disease-mdt-pd-translation-and-validation-in-a-multilingual-population-of-the-luxembourg-parkinsons-study-help-pd/