Data gathered includes basic demographics such as marital status, living situations, educational level, and employment status. A minimal attempt is made to identify impact of MS on patient's ability to be employed. There is also some information on third party healthcare insurance sources. Military service and its relationship to care within the VA healthcare system has just begun to be gathered, with over 3,000 individuals enrolled since last year and approximately 100 more joining each week. There is some information about family history and genetic association with this disease in terms of twins and family associated disease.
Diagnostic evaluations are more difficult to collect.
It is not intuitively obvious for a patient to identify the type of MS they have. Therefore, queries about relapse and attack frequency are used. It is, however, difficult to tell from this information if the patient is relapse-remitting or secondary progressive. Some information is gathered on medication and therapies, both historical and present. The scale asks how these symptoms impact the patient in terms of their daily activities.