The BASDAI consists of a one through 10 scale (one being no problem and 10 being the worst problem) which is used to answer 6 questions pertaining to the 5 major symptoms of AS: Fatigue Spinal pain Joint pain / swelling Areas of localized tenderness (also called enthesitis, or inflammation of tendons and ligaments) Morning stiffness duration Morning stiffness severity When evaluated using strict clinical paramaters, the BASDAI was validated: BASDAI is a quick and simple index (taking between 30 secs and 2 mins to complete) BASDAI demonstrated statistically significant (p<0.001) reliability. BASDAI encorporates a reasonable scale. The individual symptoms and the index as a whole demonstrated good score distribution, using 95% of the scale. BASDAI demonstrates a sensitivity to change within a short period of time. Following a 3 week physiotherapy course, the BASDAI showed a significant (p=0.009) 16.4% score improvement.