Scales
Scales for Measuring Illness Severity
These scales attempt to measure overall severity Fibromyalgia/CFS, of pain, or of illness in general for a patient. Remember, these questionnaires are not standardised at all – that means you might score 50% on one test, 70% on another and 4 on yet another! The scales are not connected at all like, say, IQ tests [...]
Charrles Shepherd’s CFS Disability Scale
This is the ability scale from the book ‘Living With ME’ by Dr Charles Shepherd. It seems to be not terribly different from Jill Moss and David Bell’s scales, although I don’t know if this is because it was derived somehow from them, or because there are only a limited number of ways to describe [...]
Personalising The Randall Chronic Pain Scale
This is my personal chronic pain scale, created from Lois’s “Randall Chronic Pain Scale.” Having a personal pain scale helps me communicate with health-care people and know that we’re both talking about the same thing when we refer to a certain level of pain.
Unknown Pain Scale
This scale was sent to me in email, without any attribution. If anybody knows where it came from I will cheerfully obtain the appropriate permissions to post it here and add an attribution as needed. It seems to be a very good scale though (as a person living with severe chronic pain, I can relate [...]
Terri Dorothy’s Fatigue Scale
This scale is Copyright © Terri Dorothy <tdorothy@mddc.com> 1997 and is used with permission. Thanks to the people who helped me track Terri down so I could ask her!
This scale was developed by Terri Dorothy and was originally posted on the alt.meds.cfs newsgroup.
1
I feel well-rested, even energetic. Life is good.
2
I’m a bit off today. Not [...]
Shanon West Pain Definitions
Shannon West posted this in the Fibromyalgia community on LiveJournal. It is used with her full permission and acknowledging her full copyright of the work.
Hmm, this feels funny. Huh. Oh well.
Hmm, this kinda hurts a bit. Oh well.
Hmm, this is kinda hurts. Ow. Oh well.
Ow. Time for a regular strength Tylenol. Gone.
Um, ok… this hurts. [...]
Jill Moss’s CFS Ability Scale
The excerpts used here remain copyright © Jill I Moss 1995, All rights reserved.
This is the ability scale from the book ‘Somebody Help ME’ by Jill Moss. It has been specially adapted for young people from the ‘Disability Scale’ sent out by the UK M.E. Organizations in 1994. Their scale is somewhat more complicated and [...]
Karnofsky Rating Scale
This is the Karnofsky Rating Scale. It is not specific to CFS although it may be marginally useful. This scale was developed in the 1940s by David Karnofsky and Joseph Burchenal as an attempt to measure the more ’subjective’ side of the outcome of cancer treatment.
100
Normal, no complaints, no evidence of disease.
Able to carry on [...]
David Bell’s CFS Severity Scale
This scale is from ‘The Doctor’s Guide to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome’, by David S Bell, pages 122-123.
Copyright in the following excerpts remains with David S Bell, MD.
The attempt is to document as accurately as possible the severity of symptoms, the degree of activity impairment with both activity and rest, and the functional ability regarding [...]