Autoimmune glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) astrocytopathy (GFAP-A) is an immune-mediated inflammatory disease of the central nervous system. However, GFAP-A characterized by progressive encephalomyelitis with rigidity and myoclonus as its predominant clinical phenotype is rare. This article described a case, supplemented with clinical video, of a young male patient who developed fever and neck pain at disease onset. Over the course of the illness, the patient experienced progressively worsening painful muscle spasms, muscle rigidity, and stimulus-sensitive myoclonus, accompanied by autonomic dysfunction. Cerebrospinal fluid analysis revealed positive GFAP-IgG antibodies. The patient showed significant improvement with treatment of high-dose corticosteroids, intravenous immunoglobulin, and mycophenolate mofetil.

Autoimmune glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) astrocytopathy (GFAP-A) is an immune-mediated inflammatory disease of the central nervous system. However, GFAP-A characterized by progressive encephalomyelitis with rigidity and myoclonus as its predominant clinical phenotype is rare. This article described a case, supplemented with clinical video, of a young male patient who developed fever and neck pain at disease onset. Over the course of the illness, the patient experienced progressively worsening painful muscle spasms, muscle rigidity, and stimulus-sensitive myoclonus, accompanied by autonomic dysfunction. Cerebrospinal fluid analysis revealed positive GFAP-IgG antibodies. The patient showed significant improvement with treatment of high-dose corticosteroids, intravenous immunoglobulin, and mycophenolate mofetil.

Objective:To perform cross-cultural adaption of the KING′s Parkinson′s Disease Pain Scale (KPPS), explore its reliability and validity in Chinese Parkinson′s disease (PD) patients, and to create the new version of the pain scale which adapts to the Chinese PD patients.Methods:This study enrolled 225 patients, including 121 men and 104 women who were selected from the Outpatient Center of Movement Disorders Clinic of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University from July 2018 to July 2020. All patients completed the evaluation of the Chinese Version of KPPS (KPPS-CV). According to the preliminary evaluation results, the expert group modified KPPS-CV after discussion, and developed a Modified KPPS-CV (MKPPS-CV). These patients then completed the MKPPS-CV evaluation during the 3-month follow-up. Cross-cultural adaptation was performed according to published international guidelines that include translation, back-translation, expert review, and pretesting. The following psychometric properties were evaluated: basic item analysis; floor and ceiling effects; construct validity; content validity; criterion validity (Spearman′s rho between the KPPS-CV and Numeric Rating Scale); internal consistency reliability (Cronbach′s alpha); test-retest reliability (intra-class correlation coefficient, ICC).Results:In item analysis, 50% of the items had poor discrimination (critical ratio<3.0), and floor effect was found in all domains (proportion of 0 point>15%). The items were reclassified after exploratory factor analysis. The content validity of item 3, item 10 and item 11 was low (item-level content validity index<0.78). Criterion validity showed the highest correlations (Spearman′s rho>0.88) between the KPPS-CV and Numeric Rating Scale. While overall scale reliability was minimally acceptable at 0.46, which showed a poor reliability of this scale. Test-retest reliability was excellent for each item (Spearman's rho>0.85). The Cronbach′s alpha of MKPPS-CV (0.76) was higher than that of KPPS-CV (0.46). It showed a great improvement after the modifying.Conclusions:When using scales that are not developed for local populations, differences in culture and clinical practices should be taken into account. MKPPS-CV is an acceptable, valid measure to evaluate pain in Chinese PD patients, which is more suitable for Chinese people.