Clinical Meaningfulness of Individual Items of the Brief Ataxia Rating Scale and the Scale for the Assessment and Rating of Ataxia

The study examined the clinical meaningfulness of items on two scales used to measure cerebellar ataxia severity – the Brief Ataxia Rating Scale (BARS) and Scale for the Assessment and Rating of Ataxia (SARA). Thirty patients with cerebellar ataxia completed both scales and questionnaires about their functional abilities. Patients considered gait the most important item on both scales, followed by oculomotor function (BARS) and stance (SARA). The heel-to-shin item was considered least important and was overestimated on both scales. Changes of 0.5 points in gait and speech scores on BARS were rated as very or extremely important by 60% and 46.6% of patients, respectively. The research demonstrated that gait is most clinically meaningful to patients with ataxia and that smaller incremental changes in scores are clinically relevant.