Khosro Hekmat
What does my score say - and what does it not? For restless legs syndrome there is no blood test and no image. There are questions, and from them instruments have been developed that support diagnosis, measure severity and shape prescriptions and prevalence figures. Anyone who does not understand them is led astray by them. This volume says which instrument is for what. It explains why, when a whole population is screened, roughly two out of three positive results are false positives, how many points of change on the International Restless Legs Scale mean anything at all, and which complication of treatment is visible on no severity scale. Alongside the questionnaires come the other methods: the immobilisation test, the levodopa test, movement recording, and the instruments for sleep, tiredness, quality of life and mood - together with the question of how to ask when somebody cannot answer for themselves. WHAT IS IN THE BOOK- Which instrument supports the diagnosis and which explicitly does not- How to tell whether a questionnaire is any good- Why a positive screening result still often does not mean RLS- What three, nine and forty points on the severity scale mean- Augmentation has a scale and a questionnaire of its own- Why your score and your night in the sleep laboratory often do not match- Immobilisation test, levodopa test and movement recorders- Children, dementia and other situations where asking is not enough WHO THIS BOOK IS FORFor patients who have filled in a questionnaire and want to make sense of the score, for anyone taking part in a trial, and for health professionals who want the common instruments and their measurement properties side by side. ABOUT THE SERIESVolume 12 of 52 in the book series on restless legs syndrome, part 'Forms of the Condition and Differential Diagnosis'. Every volume can be read on its own. The statements in this volume rest on 197 professional sources, each one listed individually in the reference section.
