Multiple Sclerosis Rehabilitation Requirements

MS represents a real challenge to the cognitive and physical functions. In order to reduce the damage caused to these functions, rehabilitation is required.

Rehabilitation includes physical, occupational speech and cognitive therapies, each one with its defined purposes:

• - Physical therapy increases a person's ability to deal with routine activities and improves physical comfort.
• - Occupational therapy helps a person to fulfill daily tasks, to perform activities that imply the use of arms and hands: dressing, eating, bathing, etc. in order to obtain better effects, assistive devices are often used.
• - Speech therapy restores the skill of communication altered by the disease.
• - Cognitive retraining restores or tries to restore the lost cognitive elements.

The importance of rehabilitation

The role of the rehabilitation is to help people with permanent and severe symptoms of MS to have a productive life. Physical and occupational therapies maintain mobility, the speech therapy maintains and restores the skills of communication and cognitive retraining helps a person to be well organized and to use his memory. They are adapted to the needs of each patient.

Physical therapy has as main purpose the prevention of complications brought by MS: contractures or pressure sores in case of immobility. The persons able to inform you on rehabilitation and MS are:

• - Your doctor
• - An occupational therapist
• - A physical therapist

Which is the type of rehabilitation that I need?

The MS type and the particularities of your case will decide what the appropriate kind of rehabilitation that you need is. Rehabilitation doesn't address to severely disabled patients. You may take one or more of the therapies below:

Physical therapy mostly deals with the most frequent type of MS: relapsing – remitted form. Your daily program won't contain any exercise or activity that you are unable to perform; they will suite your needs.

This kind of therapy represents an alternation of the exercises with periods of relaxation. Aquatic exercises and any other types of gentle aerobic exercises will be available to you. Exercising in water will improve the range of movement.

Occupational therapy's main purpose is to help people with disabilities generated by MS to perform routine activities, like dressing, brushing their teeth, cooking, cleaning, eating, etc.

In case you need assisted devices, they will be given to you by an occupational therapist. There are many available such devices: a cane that helps you to walk, an electric tooth brush, wheelchairs, hooks that help you button your clothes.

The physical therapist should advice the occupational therapist regarding strengthening and stretching exercises.

Speech therapy

Weakness of the facial muscles or lesions of your brain may have affected or affect your capacity to talk (the rhythm may be interrupted by long pauses, slurring of words or a nasal tone). By speech therapy, the muscles in the tong, cheeks, mouth and lips are strengthened.

In case of swallowing difficulties, the therapist may give exercises that strengthen muscles and make the identification of the food's consistence easier.

Cognitive retraining

MS may develop in the affected people cognitive impairment such as slowed thinking, reasoning, focusing and remembering. This happens because of the destruction of the myelin and the blockage of the information sent by the brain to the other organs.

These problems are not very serious usually and they don't prevent the people from living a normal life. Only in the forms that affect daily activities, cognitive retraining is absolutely necessary.

Cognitive retraining gives the alternative to decrease the disability's degree. Patients must be directed to the use of a notebook, handheld or computer.