Trial to Evaluate The Efficacy Of Rotigotine on Parkinson's Disease-Associated Motor Symptoms And Apathy

The Apathy Scale (AS) is an abbreviated version of the Apathy Evaluation Scale. The AS (Starkstein et al, 1992) consists of 14 items phrased as questions by the examiner that are to be answered on a 4-point Likert scale. It was developed specifically for subjects with Parkinson's disease because the Apathy Evaluation Scale was considered too demanding.

The questions comprising the AS were answered by the caregiver. The questions were asked in a structured interview format. The caregiver was interviewed by appropriate medical staff and asked questions about the subject in the third person.The total scores for Apathy Evaluation Scale ranges from 0 (best possible outcome) to 42 (worst possible outcome).

The 8-Item Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire (PDQ-8) (Peto et al, 1998) is a self-administered questionnaire that provides a reliable measure of overall health status. The PDQ-8 collects 8 items with 5 categories each (0=never, 1=occasionally, 2=sometimes, 3=often, 4=always or cannot do at all). The total score was calculated by summing the scores of all applicable questions and convert the resulting sum to a summary index score between 0 and 100 by multiplying with 100/32. A negative value indicates an improvement.

Nonmotor performance was assessed via the Nonmotor Symptom Assessment Scale (NMSS), an accepted scale that has been validated in an international study (Naidu et al, 2006; Chaudhuri et al, 2007), at the Baseline Visit as well as at the end of the Maintenance Period. The severity and frequency of the subject's nonmotor symptoms were assessed by the investigator (or designee) in the following 9 domain categories: cardiovascular, including falls; sleep/fatigue; mood/cognition; perceptual problems/hallucinations; attention/memory; gastrointestinal tract; urinary; sexual function; and miscellaneous.

Items are scored for severity (from 0 (none) to 3 (severe)) and frequency (from 1 (rarely) to 4 (very frequent )). The score was calculated as severity x frequency. The theoretical minimum is 0 (best possible outcome) and maximum total score is 360 points (worst possible outcome).

The Snaith Hamilton Pleasure Scale (SHAPS) (Snaith et al, 1995) is a self-report instrument developed for the assessment of hedonic capacity. The sum of the 14 items scores range from 0 to 14. A higher score represents more anhedonic symptoms.

The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) is a self-report instrument to measure depression symptoms and severity (Beck et al, 1961). The BDI-II is a revised version of the scale in order to be more consistent with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) criteria for depression (Beck et al, 1996). There are 21 items in the BDI-II, classified as cognitive-affective (Items 1-13) and somatic-performance (Items 14-21) subscales. The degree of severity is indicated on a 4-point scale; items are rated from 0 (not at all) to 3 (extreme form of each symptom). Scores of 0-13 indicate minimal depression, 14-19 indicate mild depression, 20-28 indicate moderate depression, and 29-63 indicate severe depression.

Part III of the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) assesses motor function. The UPDRS is completed by questioning the subject about his/her general state in conjunction with any observations made by the investigator (or designee) since the previous visit.

The UPDRS Part III (motor subscale) had to be measured in the "on" state and consisted of 27 items and sub items scored between 0 and 4. The sum score ranged between 0 and 108 and was calculated as sum of the 27 individual scores. If 1 or more items were missing and could not be substituted with a previous post-Baseline value, the sum score was also missing.

A negative value indicates an improvement.

The Clinical Global Impression (CGI) scales (Guy and Bonato, 1970) were initially developed for a risk-benefit estimation within the treatment of mentally ill patients. The 4 global scales (severity of illness, change in severity from Baseline, therapeutic efficacy, and tolerability of treatment) are used as different measures of treatment outcome in different kinds of pharmacological studies.

The CGI Item 1 (severity of illness) collected 1 answer out of 8 categories (0-'Not assessed', 1-'Normal, not at all ill', 2-'Borderline ill', 3-'Mildly ill', 4-'Moderately ill', 5-'Markedly ill', 6-'Severely ill', and 7-'Among the most extremely ill patients') at each assessment. The category 0-'Not assessed' was considered as missing and therefore used neither for calculation nor for display purposes.