Responsiveness of the MD-childhood rating scale in dyskinetic cerebral palsy patients undergoing anticholinergic treatment.

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

Movement Disorder-Childhood Rating Scale (MD-CRS) is a new tool for assessment of movement disorders during developmental age.

AIM:

In this study we evaluated a cohort of 47 patients affected by dyskinetic cerebral palsy and treated with anticholinergic drug (trihexyphenidyl) over one year in order to verify the responsiveness of the new scale.

METHODS:

The participants were divided into two groups according to their age (0-3 years; 4-18 years) and were evaluated using MD-CRS 0-3 or MD-CRS 4-18 at baseline, i.e., before starting pharmacological treatment (T0), after 6 (T1) and 12 months (T2) of treatment. Univariate repeated measures ANOVA with a Greenhouse-Geisser correction was performed to analyse the scale responsiveness for the three indexes (e.g., Index I, Index II and Global Index) in each group with time (T0, T1 and T2). In addition, Bonferroni test was performed to identify the source of significant differences among means.

RESULTS:

Significant differences were found between time points (T1 vs T0, T2 vs. T0 and T2 vs. T1) in both scales for all indexes with the exception for T2 vs. T1 for Index II in both scales and for T2 vs. T1 for the Global Index in the older age group. There was not significant correlation between observed changes in the scores and age of children, either for MD-CRS 0-3 or MD-CRS 4-18.

CONCLUSIONS:

Our results suggest that MD-CRS is a suitable tool to detect changes and could be used as outcome measure for clinical trials. Further studies will be necessary to prove the efficacy of trihexyphenidyl for dyskinetic cerebral palsy.

• Authors: Roberta Battini, Manuela Casarano, Giuseppina Sgandurra, Ilaria Olivieri, Roberta Di Pietro, Domenico M Romeo, Eugenio Mercuri, Giovanni Cioni
• Journal: European journal of paediatric neurology : EJPN : official journal of the European Paediatric Neurology Society (Eur J Paediatr Neurol) Vol. 18 Issue 6 Pg. 698-703 (Nov 2014) ISSN: 1532-2130 [Electronic] England
• PMID: 25022341 (Publication Type: Journal Article)
• Copyright: Copyright © 2014 European Paediatric Neurology Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Chemical References

• Cholinergic Antagonists
• Trihexyphenidyl

Topics

• Adolescent
• Age Factors
• Analysis of Variance
• Cerebral Palsy (diagnosis, drug therapy)
• Child
• Child, Preschool
• Cholinergic Antagonists (therapeutic use)
• Female
• Humans
• Infant
• Infant, Newborn
• Male
• Outcome Assessment, Health Care (methods)
• Severity of Illness Index
• Trihexyphenidyl (therapeutic use)