Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale

The most useful diagnostic tool is the clinical history, including both presenting symptoms and associated risk factors. The Unified Parkinson s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) is used to define the degree of disability. 

UPDRS Unified Parkinson s Disease Rating Scale... 

All of the more recent compounds have been tested in randomized double-blind clinical trials using the Unified Parkinson s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS). We do not however have studies comparing the different drugs nor different treatment durations. In addition, the length of these trials is totally different from that of the natural disease course (20 years). It is paradoxical that levodopa, developed in the sixties, remains today the mainstay treatment for Parkinson s disease (levodopa is always associated with a peripheral decarboxylase inhibitor, either car-bidopa or benzerazide). 

Fahn S. and Elton R.L. Unified Parkinson s disease rating scale. In Recent development in Parkinson s disease, Fahn S. and Marsden C.D., Caine D.B., Goldstein (Eds). Macmillan Health Care, Florham Park, NJ, pp.153-164. 

Fahn S, Elton RL, UPDRS Development Committee (1987) Unified Parkinson s Disease Rating Scale. In Fahn S, Marsden CD, Goldstein M, Caine DB (Eds), Recent Developments in Parkinson s Disease, pp. 153-163. MacMillan Health Care Information, New York. 

The efficacy and safety of risperidone have been evaluated in 44 patients (25 women and 19 men) with Parkinson s disease (80). There was either complete or near-complete resolution of hallucinations in 23, but an unsatisfactory response (n = 6) or worsening of parkinsonism (n = 6) in 12. Excluding patients with diffuse Lewy body disease, there was no significant worsening of scores on the Unified Parkinson s Disease Rating Scale after either 3 or 6 months of treatment, and the presence of dementia did not predict the response to treatment. 

In a single-dose, crossover, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of flumazenil and placebo in 16 subjects with Parkinson s disease, scores on the Unified Parkinson s Disease Rating Scale tended to improve, but the effect was not significant the most common adverse events were light-headedness or dizziness [92 ]. 

Greffard, S., Vemy, N., Bormet, AA4., Beinis, J.Y., Gallinari, C., Meaume, S., Piette, F., Hauw, J.J., Duyckaerts, C., 2006. Motor score of the Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale as a good predictor of Lewy body-associated neuronal loss in the substantia nigra. Arch. Neurol. 63 (4), 584—588. 

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