Physiotherapeutic methods for promoting neuroplasticity in patients with multiple sclerosis.
Keywords:
Multiple sclerosis, Neuroplasticity, Physiotherapy, RehabilitationAbstract
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a disease of the central nervous system of autoimmune origin, characterized by inflammation, demyelination, gliosis (fibrous proliferation of the glial cells in the affected area) and finally, destruction of the neural cells (neural loss). Non pharmacological interventions for patients with MS focus primarily on physical and psychological rehabilitation.
Neuroplasticity can be defined as the ability of the brain to change, remodel and reorganize itself to obtain the ability to adapt to new situations. Although the concept of neuroplasticity is quite novel, it is one of the most important discoveries in neuroscience. The aim of the present scoping was to investigate and present the recent literature data regarding physiotherapeutic and other methods for promoting neuroplasticity in patients with multiple sclerosis.
In total, 102 relevant scientific papers (reviews, systematic reviews and original trials), published after 2010 were analyzed. The findings of the review are encouraging - a number of physiotherapeutic methods (such as therapeutic exercise or neurophysiological rehabilitation techniques, for example) appear to be effective in promoting neuroplasticity in patients with MS; on the other hand, the findings of newer and increasingly popular methods such as, for example, robotic – assisted rehabilitation are not clear.
However, as the relevant research is based on small and not always high quality clinical studies, it is clear that additional research is needed, with randomized controlled trials of sufficient statistical power in order to extract more solid scientific data.
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References
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