Emphasizing the social side of interventions
Session cochair Brian M. Sandroff, PhD, director of the Exercise Neurorehabilitation Research Laboratory at the Kessler Foundation, East Hanover, N.J., commented that the results are “really exciting.”
He said that the improvements across the range of measures assessed in the study were not surprising, “considering the intervention was multicomponent, and so had the potential to affect a number of different physical and cognitive domains.”
One factor in managing MS that came up again and again during the discussion at the end of the session was the social aspect of interventions, with Dr. Lynch saying the group sessions in particular were appreciated by participants in her trial.
Dr. Sandroff, who was not involved in the study, said that it has been questioned whether the social side should be controlled for when assessing interventions, or “maybe it’s something we should promote within our studies.”
He explained that being social “overcomes a lot of isolation-related issues among people with MS who have comorbidities,” which can result in “reduced quality of life and differences in symptomatic manifestations.”
“Providing that group setting might have lots of outcomes besides just a biological loss of mass” because of the intervention itself, Dr. Sandroff said.
The study was supported by grants from the National MS Society. Dr. Lynch declares relationships with Biogen, Genzyme, Teva, Sanofi, Novartis, Celgene, Roche, Immunic, National Institutes of Health, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, Anokion, TG Therapeutics, and Actelion. Other authors also declared relationships. Dr. Sandroff declared no relevant relationships.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.