Effect of Aquatic Training on Psychological Well-being in Women with Multiple Sclerosis

Abstract

Introduction: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory disease of the nervous system in which a T-cell-mediated inflammatory process is associated with destruction of myelin sheaths. The most Common problems may include fatigue, cramps, tremor, diplopia, and unsteadiness of gait. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of aquatic training on psychological well-being of women with MS for a 12 week period.

Methods: Methods include a quasi-experiment applied research among the female patients referred to Kashani MS clinic. 38 women with MS (0<EDSS> 4/5; 8±2 years disease; 20-40 years old) selected as a sample of reseach and were randomly assigned to treatment and control group. Aquatic training program for treatment group including, three times per week (each sessions one hour) for 6 weeks. Moreover patients' psychological well-being was measured using WLFOQOL-BREF test, before and after exercise and analysis of data obtained from 30 subjects.

Results: Is done by using descriptive statistics and analysis of covariance and comparisons of adjusted averages. Findings indicate that aquatic training can improve psychological well-being in woman with multiple sclerosis (P=0.001).

Conclusion: Aquatic training program increase psychological well-being in MS patients. According to these results, exercise therapy can be used as a complementary treatment alongside drug treatment to alleviate symptoms of MS in patients.