Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Severity Scale

Abstract

The amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) severity scale has been developed to provide an ordinal staging system and a means of rapid functional assessment for patients with ALS. The scale allows an examiner to evaluate the symptoms of ALS numerically in four categories that describe speech, swallowing, lower extremity, and upper extremity abilities. These scores, combined with a vital capacity measured on a hand-held respirometer, provide a rapid, accurate assessment of a patient''s disease status and can be used for treatment planning. The ALS severity scale has been shown to have an average estimated reliability coefficient of 0.95 between examiners. Speech ratings were correlated >0.80 for objective speech measures. Rates of progression of the total score in a small group of patients ranged from –3.4 to –24.0 points/year with a mean of –11.3 points/year.

Applications of diffusion‐weighted and diffusion tensor MRI to white matter diseases – a review

“…On the other hand, fractional anisotropy was found to correlate with measures of disease severity (assessed using the Ashworth spasticity scale and the ALS severity scale 29 ). While there was no correlation between anisotropy and disease duration (r = À0.17; p = 0.48), significant correlations between anisotropy and the ALS severity scale (r = À0.63; p = 0.003) and Ashworth spasticity scale (r = À0.56; p = 0.007) existed.…”

Motor neuron disease: the impact of decreased speech intelligibility on marital communication

“…22 The progressive decline in speech function across all visits was evident (see Figure 2). At the last visit, only one of the nine participants reported a "detectable speech disturbance", three had to implement "behavioural modifications", three used "augmentative communication", and two reported "loss of useful speech".…”

“…Five validated measures were utilised to meet the requirements posed by the research aims: classification of MND, 21 Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Severity Scale (ALSSS) Speech Scale, 22 Sentence Intelligibility Test (SIT), 23 Modified Communication Effectiveness Index (CETI-M) 5 and the Primary Communication Inventory (PCI).…”

“…During the first visit, the aims of the research were explained and consent was obtained. Demographic information was acquired from the couple and the ALSSS Speech Scale 22 and Classification of MND 21 were completed by the researcher based on the clinical observations and interviews with both members of the couple. Persons with MND completed the following instruments with the assistance of the researcher: SIT, 23 CETI-M 5 and PCI.…”

“…11,21 The ALSSS Speech Scale 22 was used to describe the functional impairment experienced by persons with MND in the area of speech for this study. The 10-point scale of function includes five general categories namely normal speech processes, detectable speech disturbance, the need for behavioural modifications, the need for use of augmentative communication and loss of useful speech.…”