Disability Measures in Stroke

Abstract
Background and Purpose— Residual disability after stroke presents a major economic and humanistic burden. To quantify disability in patients, activities of daily living (ADL; Barthel Index [BI], and motor component of Functional Independence Measure [M-FIM]) and categorical disability measures (Modified Rankin Scale [MRS]) are used. The purpose of this study is to examine the predicting ability of ADL measures to global disability scale. Methods— Kansas City Stroke Study data were used for the present study. Correlation coefficient, Kruskal-Wallis test, and polytomous logistic regression analysis were applied to examine the relationship between the ADL measure and global disability scale. Model fit statistics were examined to verify logistic regression appropriateness. A categorization scheme, which minimized the false-positive response rate, was selected as the optimal categorizing system. Results— The 3 measures were highly correlated. Both BI and M-FIM differentiated disability better in lower than hig...