In this issue of the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry are three closely related reports on scores for assessing the functional disability of patients with polyneuropathies. A further purpose may be to assess the severity of the polyneuropathy itself. Most patients studied had immune polyneuropathies and generalised weakness. In the first one, Graham and Hughes¹ describe “a new peripheral neuropathy activities measure, the Overall Neuropathy Limitations Scale (ONLS)”, a slight modification of the Overall Disability Sum Score (ODSS) (see p 973). From responses of patients to questions about limitations of acts of daily living and by observation of these activities, a sum score of limitations is derived. Activities such as “wash and brush hair, turn a key in the lock, difficulty in walking” and other motor activities are included. The patient and observer (when the activities were witnessed) judged each activity: not affected, affected but not prevented or prevented. The investigators report good inter-rater reliability, good correlation with results of the ODSS and 36-item Short Form (SF-36) Physical Component Summary scores. The performance of this limitations score was good, whether the activity was observed or unobserved. They list simplicity as its favourable feature.

In a second …