Abstract
Due to the variety of clinical phenotypes and the massive clinical overlap with other neurodegenerative diseases, the diagnosis of Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP) remains a major challenge. Notwithstanding, early and reliable clinical diagnosis of PSP is highly warranted for estimation of prognosis, appropriate allocation to therapeutic trials and development of new diagnostic tools. As reliable biomarkers are lacking, PSP diagnosis relies on the application of the clinical criteria promoted by the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society (MDS). Despite providing a framework including all the main PSP cornerstones (ocular dysfunction and postural instability, akinesia and cognitive dysfunction), the application of the MDS PSP criteria is complex and not straightforward to apply in a clinical setting. Herein we propose a practical tool, including a video-guided slide-set and a smartsheet, to disseminate the MDS PSP clinical criteria among healthy practitioners and increase confidence in non expert clinicians towards suspicion and diagnosis of PSP. The video-guided slide set may serve as a teaching resource for both general neurologists and practitioners, while the smartsheet may represent a valid support in attributing the degree of diagnostic certainty and phenotype based on the identified clinical features. Application of our tool may improve early recognition of patients in primary and secondary care and determine a prompt referral to third level movement disorder centers for consideration in clinical trials testing disease-modifying treatments.