INTERNATIONAL COOPERATIVE ATAXIA RATING-SCALE FOR PHARMACOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT OF THE CEREBELLAR SYNDROME

Despite the involvement of cerebellar ataxia in a large variety of con ditions and its frequent association with other neurological symptoms, the quantification of the specific core of the cerebellar syndrome is possible and useful in Neurology, Recent studies have shown that cere bellar ataxia might be sensitive to various types of pharmacological a gents, but the scales used for assessment were all different. With the long-term goal of double-blind controlled trials-multicentric and int ernational-an ad hoc Committee of the World Federation of Neurology ha s worked to propose a one-hundred-point semi-quantitative Internationa l Cooperative Ataxia Rating Scale (ICARS), The scale proposed involves a compartimentalized quantification of postural and stance disorders, limb ataxia, dysarthria and oculomotor disorders, in order that a sub score concerning these symptoms may be separately studied, The weight of each symptomatologic compartment has been carefully designed, The m embers of the Committee agreed upon precise definitions of the tests, to minimize interobserver variations. The validation of this scale is in progress. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.