Quality of life assessments in children and adolescents that allow better measure of the personal impact of pediatric musculoskeletal disease is lacking. In assessment of musculoskeletal disease for adults, lost wages and lost workdays are used to quantify burden. There is no corresponding way to measure burden in children. Currently, it is quantified indirectly by measuring lost wages and lost workdays for the child’s caregiver. Better methods for quantifying indirect burden of pediatric musculoskeletal disease is needed.

Better long-term follow-up data on pediatric musculoskeletal conditions is needed. Once patients reach adulthood, it becomes difficult for the physician who cared for their musculoskeletal conditions to keep track of them. This results in difficulty understanding adult manifestations of pediatric musculoskeletal conditions. On a global basis, the disability-adjusted life year (DALY), developed in the 1990s as a way of comparing the overall health and life expectancy of different countries, is used as a measure of overall disease burden expressed as the number of years lost due to ill-health, disability or early death. Disabilities incurred in childhood, expressed in the DALY, would provide greater understanding of the lifelong burden of these conditions.