Rating Scales

[GLLJLL <Glljll@xxxxxxxx>]

The information Margaret Tuchman posted about rating scales and grading
scores is perhaps important information appreciated by some; however, I
can recall reading similar "severity scales" when I was first diagnosed
at age 33 and reacting with devastation at what I deemed my eventual con-
dition would be.  With the hope that new members of this list who are
unfamiliar with these scales and scores might be spared similar anguish, I
am quoting some passages from an article in a recent UPF Newsletter by
Peter A. LeWitt, MD., entitled "PD: The Many Identities of an Illness."
I wish I would have met with a similar article those many years ago......

   ".....One of the greatest challenges for living with this disorder
   can be the uncertainties of what the future holds. For some indiv-
   iduals, the most distressing aspects of this disorder are the
   realistic concerns of how much disability and decline in quality of
   life will evolve five or more years ahead.  PD usually does show
   some worsening within the first year after diagnosis and so the
   emergence of new signs and symptoms can easily be interpreted as a
   continuing trend of inevitable progression.  In fact, this may not
   be the case.

   Little is known of how to predict whose PD will not continue to pro-
   gress, though such an outcome is extremely common after the first
   three years of PD symptoms.... Many patients will never experience
   major disability, even ten or more years after the onset of the dis-
   order.  Though levodopa and other medications can sometimes fail over
   time, the optimist should recognize that most patients continue to
   respond to this and other drugs for PD symptoms."

Let's all try to *Ac-cen-tuate the positive* with the above hopeful
outlook and *e-lim-inate the negative* of accepting these stages of Park-
inson's as being inevitable.

Regards,

JANICE LONG