Published in

BioMed Central, Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, 1(18), 2020

DOI: 10.1186/s12955-020-01372-6

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Modelling disease course in amyotrophic lateral Sclerosis: pseudo-longitudinal insights from cross-sectional health-related quality of life data

Journal article published in 2020 by Tino Prell, Nayana Gaur ORCID, Robert Steinbach, Otto W. Witte, Julian Grosskreutz
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

Full text: Download

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Green circle
Postprint: archiving allowed
Green circle
Published version: archiving allowed
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

Abstract Background Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a rapidly progressive neurodegenerative disorder with limited robust disease-modifying therapies presently available. While several treatments are aimed at improving health-related quality of life (HRQoL), longitudinal data on how QoL changes across the disease course are rare. Objectives To explore longitudinal changes in emotional well-being and HRQoL in ALS. Methods Of the 161 subjects initially recruited, 39 received 2 subsequent follow-up assessments at 6 and 12 months after baseline. The ALS Functional Rating Scale-Revised (ALSFRS-R) was used to assess physical impairment. HRQoL was assessed using the ALS Assessment Questionnaire (ALSAQ-40). The D50 disease progression model was applied to explore longitudinal changes in HRQoL. Results Patients were primarily in the early semi-stable and early progressive model-derived disease phases. Non-linear correlation analyses showed that the ALSAQ-40 summary index and emotional well-being subdomain behaved differently across disease phases, indicating that the response shift occurs early in disease. Both the ALSFRS-R and ALSAQ-40 significantly declined at 6- and 12-monthly follow-ups. Conclusion ALSAQ-40 summary index and emotional well-being change comparably over both actual time and model-derived phases, indicating that the D50 model enables pseudo-longitudinal interpretations of cross-sectional data in ALS.