CSS · CRPS Severity Score

A continuous severity measure for complex regional pain syndrome, rather than the yes/no of the diagnostic criteria.

Combines self-reported symptoms with clinician-observed signs across the sensory, vasomotor, sudomotor/oedema and motor/trophic domains.

When CRPS is suspected or established, and at review. The highest-yield setting for a student is after a distal radius fracture, where CRPS has its own literature and its own red flag on that page.

Pain out of proportion, swelling that isn't settling, colour and temperature change, allodynia, and stiffness that is getting worse rather than better — that combination is the trigger.

Sixteen items, scored present/absent, totalled 0–16. Higher means more severe.

It requires examination, not just a questionnaire — temperature, colour, sweating, oedema, range, strength, tremor and trophic changes all have to be looked at and compared with the other side.

It does not diagnose CRPS and it does not replace the diagnostic criteria or a medical opinion.

Recognition and early escalation are the physiotherapist's job here. This is a diagnosis that gets made late, and a student who names it early has done the useful thing.

A severity score, not a diagnostic instrument. Diagnosis rests on the criteria; this tracks how the condition is changing.

Its value on placement is that it forces the examination. A student who scores it has looked at temperature, colour, sweating and trophic change — which is the examination that gets skipped.