Clinical Measures of Disease Progression in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

ABSTRACT: Progressive weakness remains the clinical hallmark of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Accordingly, a variety of tools has been developed to capture this disease feature, including questionnaires, such as the ALS-functional rating scale, strength testing, pulmonary function tests, electrophysiologic measures, including motor unit number estimation, and imaging techniques. Despite this plethora of approaches, there is little agreement as to what measures to use in a given clinical trial or in the clinic during routine patient care. Part of the reason for this uncertainty is that ALS is a remarkably protean disease. Some individuals progress rapidly, others slowly; some patients have considerable upper motor neuron dysfunction, whereas others have little; and there is considerable variat

SUBMITTER: Rutkove SB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4404434 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature