The Effects of Low and Severe Disability on Walking Abilities and Quality of Life in Multiple Sclerosis Patients: 6-Month Follow-up Study

Objective: To explore the effects of 12-week supervised exercise program (SEP) on quality of life (QoL), walking abilities, balance impairment and fatigue in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and to compare these outcomes according to the severity of the disability.Met-hods: Demographic characteristics and medical history of a total of 24 MS patients were recorded. Disability [The Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS)], functional balance [TheBerg Balance Scale (BBS)], balance confidence [The Activities-pecific Balance Confidence (ABC)_Scale], walking difficulties [The 12-Item Multiple Sclerosis Walking Scale (MSWS-12)], fatigue [The Fatigue Impact Scale (FIS)], QoL [The MS International Quality of Life (MUSIQOL)] were evaluated before, at the end of the treatment (3rd month) and at the 6th month. Additionally, the effectiveness rate of the physiotherapy was calculated according to the disability and disease duration. Re-sults: The outcome results of the 17 participants with a mean age of 45.2±8.6 years (seven patients were excluded because of acute attacks) showed that the differences between the mean scores of MSWS-12, BBS and ABC_Scale were resulted from the 2nd assessment (p<0.001), and this differences remained at the follow-up measurements (p<0.001, p=0.003, p=0.001, respectively). The differences between the MUSIQOL scores were resulted from the 3rd assessment at the follow-up (p=0.014). There were statistically significant and positive correlation between the scores of MUSIQOL significantly positively correlated with scores of FIS-total and subgroups, in addition, MSWS-12 significantly positively correlated with MUSIQOL, BBS, ABC_Scale, FIS-total and subgroups, and EDSS scores (p<0.05). Conc-lu-si-on: 12-week SEP was resulted in similar improvements in QoL and walking abilities in both patients with low and severe disabilities. Additionally, these findings strongly suggest that treatment for walking abilities may also extend to improvements in QoL. Therefore, the rehabilitation team should consider the benefits of regular exercise and should focus and encourage people with MS to participate in exercise independent from the disease severity. (Arc-hi-ves of Neu-ropsy-chi-atry 2013; 50: 23-29)