Assessing the impact of the five senses on quality of life in mucopolysaccharidoses

Abstract

Background: The mucopolysaccharidoses (MPSs) are lysosomal storage disorders associated with progressive multiorgan and skeletal abnormalities. Clinical manifestations can affect each of the five senses: hearing, vision, smell, taste, and touch. Main body of the abstract: On 24–26 May 2018, 46 specialists with expertise in managing symptoms of MPS and experts specialized in evaluating and managing impairments in each one of the five senses gathered in Lisbon, Portugal at the “MPS & the five senses” meeting to discuss how loss of one or multiple senses can affect activities of daily living (ADL) and quality of life (QoL) in MPS patients and best practices in evaluating and managing the loss of senses in these individuals. The meeting confirmed that MPS can affect the senses considerably, but how these impairments affect ADL and overall QoL from a patient’s perspective remains unclear. A better insight may be achieved by prospectively collecting patient-reported outcome (PRO) data internationally in a standardized way, using a standard battery of tools. To identify relevant PRO tools, a systematic literature review and a selection of existing published questionnaires, focused on adults with no intellectual delay, were performed after the meeting. The search strategy identified 33 PRO tools for hearing, 30 for speech, 125 for vision, 49 for touch (including pain and upper limb function), and 15 for smell/taste. A further selection was made based on several criteria, including applicability/relevance for MPS, applicability in different countries (languages)/cultures, availability in English, ease of use, validation, and normative data, resulting in a final set of 11 tools. In addition to these sense-specific PRO tools, a general QoL tool, the EuroQol (EQ)-5D-5 L, was selected to assess overall QoL and reveal coping behaviors. Short conclusion: MPS can affect each of the five senses, but current knowledge on the impact of sense impairments on QoL/ADL in MPS patients remains limited. Collection of data in a standardized fashion using sensespecific patient-reported outcome tools and a general QoL tool may fill the current knowledge gap.