Zeitschrift für Alzheimer-Krankheit und Parkinsonismus

Abstrakt

Assessing Research Tools of Timed Get-Up and Go Test and Unified Parkinson?s disease Rating Scales on Balance Dysfunction Idiopathic Parkinsonism

T Karthikeyan

Idiopathic Parkinsonism means a disorder of the central nervous system that affects movement, often including tremors. Nerve cell damage in the brain causes dopamine levels to drop, leading to the symptoms of Parkinson’s. Idiopathic parkinsonism often starts with a tremor in one hand. Other symptoms are slow movement, stiffness and loss of balance. There are various tests for testing the dynamic balance and progression of the idiopathic Parkinsonism. Such two scales are timed up and go test and unified Parkinson’s disease rating scale. This study is an attempt to find the inter-rater and intra-rater reliability of both timed up and go test and unified Parkinson’s rating scale. 30 idiopathic Parkinsonism patients were assessed for TUG and UPDRS. For Intra-rater reliability, for both scales the values were taken on 3 different days, whereas to find the inter-rater reliability of them, the values of 3 different raters on the parameters of dynamic balance and generalized disability were taken from the study group. The results were not significant when analysed with ANOVA at p<0.05 as the values were strongly consistent thus proving the intra and inter-rater reliability of TUG and UPDRS. This study concluded that the Timed up & go Test and Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale both had a good strength of Inter-rater and Intra-rater reliability in their own aspects to assess the parameters of dynamic balance and generalized disability for idiopathic parkinsonism.