Health-Related Quality of Life Outcomes from Botulinum Toxin Treatment in Spasticity
Lorenzo Pietro Roncoroni, Daniel Weiß, Leonhard Hieber, Justine Sturm, Axel Börtlein, Ingo Mayr, Matthias Appy, Benedicta Kühnler, Joachim Buchthal, Christian M. Dippon, G. Arnold, Tobias Wächter
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: The effects of botulinum toxin injections (BoNT) on health-related quality of life along the complex spectrum of spasticity needs further characterization to guide practitioners in a real-life therapeutic environment. METHODS: In this study, we analyzed 50 consecutive and unselected patients with spasticity before and four weeks after re-injection of botulinum toxin. Health-related quality of life in terms of the EuroQol (EQ) as well as further motor and non-motor characteristics were assessed. RESULTS: BoNT improved the EQ visual analog scale (EQ VAS). In addition, state of health and pain maxima improved. The EQ VAS improvement correlated with pre-injection characteristics of the EQ VAS and life satisfaction in the "movement disorders" domain. CONCLUSION: EQ VAS is sensitive for monitoring HR-QoL outcomes in an unselected real life observational cohort. This study may inform future studies intended to validate prediction variables that could inform on HR-QoL effects of BoNT treatment in spasticity.