Scale for the Severity of Disease State in EAE

During our discussion on multiple sclerosis last class we discussed the animal model of multiple sclerosis called Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis (EAE) as a tool to determine the effectiveness of treatments for multiple sclerosis. In the paper by Tsutsui et al. it was mentioned that the animals were assessed daily for EAE severity but it did not elaborate on how this was quantified in a consistent manner.
By tracing back through the references I found in the journal Natural Medicine (Liu et. al.) that severity of EAE was determined on a scale from 0-5 according to function. A score of 0 indicates that the disease is not apparent in the mobility of the animal. A score of 1 indicates mild physical signs including weight loss and tail weakness. 2 indicates mild paralysis in the hind limbs, a 3 indicates complete paralysis of the hind limbs. A 4 indicates hind limb paralysis with fore limb weakness or paralysis and finally a 5 indicates moribund (approaching death) or death.
As useful as this scale is it is unfortunate that the limit to its usefulness is limited to very advanced degrees of disease state. In humans with multiple sclerosis we know that there is a range of other problems in the early stage that manifest themselves early before obvious motor problems are manifested that this model could not be used to investigate.