The Comparative Effects of Stretching with Aerobic and Aerobic Exercises on Fatigue in Multiple Sclerosis Patients: A Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial

Backgroundthe physical activity for people with ms largely affects the amount of fatigue. increased appropriatephysical activity tends to decrease the amount of fatigue. the aim of this study was to compare theeffect of aerobic and aerobic with stretching exercises on fatigue in people with ms.methodsthe randomized controlled clinical trial was conducted on the members of the ms society of tehran,iran. 120 subjects were admitted between november 2009–april 2011; they were diagnosed withclinically definite multiple sclerosis and expanded disability status scale scores 1.0 to 5.5 andrandomly assigned to two exercise groups and one control group. outcome assessment was performedat baseline and the end of 3 month period using a checklist containing some demographic, diseasevariable and fatigue severity scale. the exercises consisted of stretching with aerobic and aerobicexercises. data were analyzed using spss software, version 18.0.resultsindependent t test showed that there are significant differences between the two exercise groups in thepretest (p < 0.005). analysis of variance showed that there were significant differences between theexercise groups before and after the intervention (p < 0.001).conclusionstretching with aerobic exercises showed significant improvement in fatigue compared to aerobicexercises alone.