ntroduction: Multiple sclerosis has a significant effect on cognition and its dysfunction is evident in about 40 to 60%/INS; of the patients. Various interventions including medications had no significant effect in improving this problem, so finding the new more efficient and available methods to overcome this problem may help the patients and enhance the quality of their lives. /INS;One of these
... [Show full abstract] methods could be exercise therapy, so we designed a pilot study in MS patients to evaluate the effect of it on cognitive functions.
Method and material: 17 (3 male and 14 female) definite/INS; MS patients with mean disease duration of 3 y and mean EDSS of 2.35, enrolled and started the selected designed physical exercises, assessed as a before and after semi-experimental intervention. All of them did balance and aerobic exercises 3 times per week for 8 weeks. Before and after of aforementioned exercises, screening cognition test (Rao et /INS;al./INS;) in 6 domains was /INS;obtained.
Results: The patients did 22.5 sessions of exercises. Changes in all part of Selective reminding test (SRT), Symbol digit modalities test (SDMT) and one part of Paced auditory serial addition test (PASAT) were significant (p < 0.05). The result of (10/36) Spatial recall test, word generation list test and second part of PASAT were not significant.
Conclusion: The results showed that physical exercises could make significant changes in different aspects of cognitive tests in the patients with MS. However, more investigation and RCTs are needed.