Measuring quality of life outcomes in spine clinical trials
Michael G Fehlings
J Neurosurg Spine, 2009
According to Dr. Michael Fehlings, quality of life includes the impact of condition and its treatment on the person’s emotional, physical, and social functioning lifestyle. Clinicians are strongly swayed by their clinical experience since there is no certain standard to measure quality of life, although categorization is normally done in the form of a rating scale. This can relate to the severity observable on radiological imaging, neurological examination findings, or impairment of daily activities. Future work should be done to examine the advantages and disadvantages of existing scales and to be specifically suited to a spinal surgical trial.