Horita et al reported a Medical Complexity Score for evaluating a pediatric patient. The authors are from University of California San Diego, UCLA, and Rady Children's Hospital San Diego.
Patient selection: pediatric patient, originally aerodigestive patients
Categories:
(1) airway anomaly (upper airway malformation, obstructive sleep apnea, pyriform aperture stenosis, choanal stenosis, tongue base obstruction, etc)
(2) neurolomuscular (brain or spinal cord malformation, intellectual disability, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, epilepsy, stroke, etc)
(3) cardiac (congenital heart disease, cardiomyopathy, conduction defect, etc)
(4) respiratory (pulmonary malformation, asthma, bronchopulmonary dysplasia, bronchiectasis, cystic fibrosis, etc)
(5) gastrointestinal (congenital GI malformation, esophageal stenosis, chronic liver disease, inflammatory bowel disease, etc)
(6) genetic disorder (chromosomal anomaly, cleft palate, skeletal malformation, etc)
(7) prematurity (gestational age <= 28 weeks)
|
Disorder in Category
|
Points
|
|
none
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0
|
|
any significant
|
1
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total score =
= SUM(points for all of the categories)
Interpretation:
• minimum score: 0
• maximum score: 7
• For patients requiring oral feeding, the higher the score the less the likelihood of feeding success.
