| Summary: | AbstractObjective methods for quantifying patients' movement capacity would be valuable for evaluating progression and interventions in neurodegenerative diseases. The Posturo-Locomotor-Manual (PLM) test is a standardized automated movement test developed for the evaluation of hypokinetic symptoms of Parkinsonism. We tested the hypotheses that the PLM movement time correlates with the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating scale motor section (UPDRS III) and that the components of the PLM test correlate to constructed corresponding domains of UPDRS III. The coherence between the results of the two assessment methods after a test dose of levodopa (L-DOPA) was also evaluated. Motor function was assessed off medication and after administration of 200 mg L-DOPA in 73 patients with Parkinsonism (47 Parkinson’s disease (PD), 17 Multiple System Atrophy (MSA) and 9 Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP)) using the PLM method and UPDRS III in parallel. We found a fair correlation between the two assessment tools in PD patients but not in the MSA or PSP patients. In the full dataset a fair to good correlation was seen between UPDRS III and PLM movement time. At group level, the PLM L-DOPA test differentiated between PD, MSA and PSP and the UPDRS III L-DOPA test differentiated PD from MSA/PSP. Measurements from the rater independent PLM method showed fair correlations with scorings from the UPDRS III and on group level the PLM method could differentiate between different forms of Parkinsonism in moderate to advanced stages.
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