Developed by the My PD Journey multi-stakeholder coalition, the Parkinson’s Disease Composite Scale (PDCS) is a simple rating scale to be used primarily by neurologists and other healthcare professionals familiar with Parkinson’s that measures the severity of symptoms experienced by people with Parkinson’s in a timely way.

Most existing rating scales used by neurologists currently explore different aspects of the condition, but do not offer a comprehensive view of a person’s condition quickly. The development of the new PDCS, led by Professors Fabrizio Stocchi (Italy), Fabiana Radicati (Italy) and Pablo Martinez Martin (Spain), was therefore urgently needed as it combines motor symptoms, non-motor symptoms and treatment-related complications; it is also simple and relatively fast to use.

Key milestones

• In collaboration with the Parkinson’s specialist neurologists who led the development of the PDCS, My PD Journey introduced the scale to an audience of more than 60 political and medical stakeholders in the European Parliament in Brussels in February 2016. It was later presented at the 20th International Congress of Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders in Berlin in June 2016.
• The results of the first validation study were published in January 2018 in the European Journal of Neurology. Results of the study concluded that the PDCS appears to be a feasible, acceptable, reproducible and valid scale.
• A second and more extensive validation study, aimed at reaffirming the first study’s findings, was completed in July 2018 and published in April 2019. This study involved 22 centres and 700 patients across 14 countries.

The PDCS was made possible by funding support from AbbVie, Britannia Pharmaceuticals, Medtronic, Teva and UCB.

The PDCS assesses the severity of the most frequent and difficult symptoms of Parkinson’s as follows:

• motor symptoms
• non-motor symptoms
• therapy complications
• disability.

Motor symptoms are examined at the time of evaluation by a healthcare professional. Non-motor symptoms and treatment complications are evaluated for severity based on the patient’s experience over the two weeks prior to the assessment.

Throughout the scale, five severity levels anchor each item: absent, mild, moderate, severe, and very severe. While a score of 0 is considered the absence of the specific disorder, some items range from 0 to 4 and others from 0 to 7 to account for the different levels of impact each symptom has on the patient. A total score can be calculated for each domain by summing its component parts, and a total score for the PDCS can be calculated by summation of the domain scores.

The PDCS is free to use and disseminate, provided you comply to some simple guidelines.

Please email info@parkinsonseurope.org to give us your feedback or if you are interested in using the PDCS in your practice.

• The PDCS is conducted in roughly 15-20 minutes. This makes a consultation between the person with Parkinson’s and their neurologist much faster than is usually the case, therefore freeing up time within the consultation to discuss other things important to the individual.
• It grades the relative importance of particular symptoms, taking into account people with Parkinson’s perspectives, which are important in the delivery of timely and effective treatment and care.
• The PDCS has been designed to complement – and not substitute – existing rating scales, which remain fundamental for the assessment of Parkinson’s.
• Overall, it is an easy tool that provides an immediate and comprehensive description of the patient information, which is vital for healthcare professionals and health authorities to evaluate the real needs of the patients.