The emotional lability questionnaire: a new measure of emotional lability in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Abstract

In an ALS Clinic, use of the Pathological Laughter and Crying Scale of Robinson et al. [Robinson RG, Parikh RM, Lipsey JR, Starkstein SE, Price TR. Pathological laughter and crying following stroke: validation of a measurement scale and double-blind treatment study. American Journal of Psychiatry 1993;150(2):286-293] revealed several problems: reliance on self-rating, insufficient period of assessment, inadequate exploration of 'appropriateness of emotion', lack of an item for abnormal smiling, amusement rather than happiness being the cause of laughter in ALS, and a frequency-based rating system. The necessary modifications produced a new Emotional Lability Questionnaire (ELQ) that was tested in 43 ALS patients and 43 healthy controls. The self-rated version of the ELQ was administered as a structured interview to each participant, and the independent-relationship between subscales of the ELQ for both versions, thus confirming its internal validity. Greater emotional lability appeared associated with pseudobulbar symptoms. The question why 14 patients rated themselves as severely labile in the crying domain alone and four in the laughter domain alone, required further study.