Cognitive-motor Dual Task Training in Patients With Multiple Sclerosis

I.R.C.C.S. Fondazione Santa Lucia

Status: Completed

Conditions: Cognitive Impairment; Motor Disorders; Multiple Sclerosis

Treatments: Other: Conventional Therapy; Other: Dynamic Postural Stability Training; Other: Cognitive-Motor Training

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04619953

CE/PROG.812

Details and patient eligibility

About

Clinical features of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) vary widely from patient to other. About the 60% of patients with MS presents cognitive deficits associated with motor disability. The principal consequences of the motor disabilities concern difficult in gait and balance. The principal cognitive deficits concern the speed in elaborating information, the complex attention and the memory. During walking in daily life, it is often required to turn the head for looking something happening in the surrounding environment, for example when a sudden noise is heard, while crossing the street, when there's something interesting around or when is required to verbally answer to someone without stopping walking. All these examples are referred to a common daily life mechanism that has been defined as dual task (DT). Considering that the attention is a limited function, divide it in two different and simultaneous tasks (motor and cognitive), cause a cognitive-motor interference (CMI) that lead to a loss of efficacy in one or in both the tasks. The main aim of the study is to verify the impact of a brief rehabilitation training that combining motor and cognitive therapy using a dual-task paradigm, on balance and gait in MS patients, compared with the traditional therapies that provide a specific postural stability rehabilitation approach. Recruited patients will be randomized in two different groups which perform two different training. Each group perform the allocated training 3 times a week for 4 weeks. All the patients will be evaluated at the baseline (T0), at the end of the training (T1) and 60 days after the end of the training (T2).

Enrollment: 42 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 30 to 65 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Diagnosis of MS according with revisited McDonalds criteria;
• Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) ranging between 0 and 6;
• Ability to walk independently or with aid for at least 50 meters.

Exclusion criteria

• Associated psychiatric and/or neurological disorders (different from the MS);
• Clinical relapse within the three months prior to enrollment;
• Steroid therapy within 30 days before the enrollment;
• Peripheric diseases as visual and/or auditory impairments that could interfere with motor and cognitive tasks execution;
• Fracture of lower limb within three months before the enrollment.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Triple Blind

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42 participants in 2 patient groups

Postural Stability group (PSg)

Active Comparator group

Description:

The Postural Stability group (PSg) will perform 30 minutes of conventional neuromotor rehabilitation and 20 minutes of dynamic postural stability training.

Treatment:

Other: Dynamic Postural Stability Training

Other: Conventional Therapy

Cognitive-Motor group (CMg)

Active Comparator group

Description:

The Cognitive-Motor group (CMg) performed 30 minutes of conventional neuromotor rehabilitation and 20 minutes of cognitive-motor training.

Treatment:

Other: Cognitive-Motor Training

Other: Conventional Therapy