A Novel Scoring System Approach to Assess Patients with Lyme Disease (Nutech Functional Score)

Area of Science:

• Medical diagnostics
• Infectious diseases
• Bacteriology

Background:

• Lyme disease (LD), caused by *Borrelia burgdorferi*, is transmitted by ticks (*Ixodes* species).
• Current diagnostic tests for LD often yield unreliable results.
• A comprehensive list of LD symptoms was compiled from clinical observations and patient reports.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a novel scoring system for assessing Lyme disease patient conditions.
• To create a reliable tool for evaluating the severity and progression of LD.

Main Methods:

• Development of the Nutech functional Score (NFS), a 43-point scoring system.
• NFS is positional and directional, assessing patient condition from 'bad' to 'good'.
• Symptom grades (1-5, BAD to GOOD) were converted to numeric values for probabilistic analysis.

Main Results:

• The NFS provides a structured method for quantifying LD symptoms.
• Numeric conversion of symptom grades enables quantitative research and analysis.
• The system is designed to reflect changes in patient condition over time.

Conclusions:

• The Nutech functional Score (NFS) is a unique and universally applicable tool.
• NFS aids in the objective assessment of patients diagnosed with Lyme disease.
• This scoring system has the potential to enhance LD patient management and research.