Outcome measurement in neurological disease

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Recent publications have focused on the possibilities that neuroscience offers patients in terms of restoring neurological function after trauma or disease. This review highlights the contribution that sophisticated outcome measurement techniques can make to the accurate evaluation of these. RECENT FINDINGS: Recent studies have focused on the role of patient-reported outcomes and their importance in the design of trials to evaluate interventions. Work is focusing on developing banks of measurement items that can be accessed using computers. Algorithms then minimize the number of items that need to be answered by an individual before an accurate measure is obtained, which can be accessed by patients. SUMMARY: Patient-reported outcomes, item banking, and computerized adaptive testing have the potential to change the way we evaluate outcome, placing individualized testing and meaningful outcome at the heart of both research and clinical care.