Evaluating the Effects of Functional Electrical Stimulation on the Rehabilitation of Patients with Multiple Sclerosis: A Systematic Review

Functional electrical stimulation (FES) is a technology that can be used on paralyzed muscles to allow them to move. It has been shown to functionally restore and rehabilitate individuals with movement disorders, such as stroke, multiple sclerosis (MS) and traumatic brain injury. We searched Pubmed database until March 2019 with functional electrical stimulation, multiple sclerosis and rehabilitation keywords. Byreading the titles, sixty-seven articles out of a total of 96 items were eliminated. Finally, we started the study with 29 remained articles that had relative abstracts. Twenty-nine relevant studies were reviewed which five were pilot, two were feasibility and one was preliminarystudies but other studies are not categorized in these groups. All of these showed various benefits of using FES to rehabilitate patients and reduce some effects of MS. Twelve articles showed gait improvements and in seven articles foot-drop was studied. In Other articles,effects of FES on reducing chronic constipation of people with multiple sclerosis (pwMS), improvements in their activities of daily living, cardiorespiratory and physiological cost of gait and muscle metabolism were also mentioned. Conclusion: The evidence presented inthis review suggests that FES has a positive effect on the rehabilitation of pwMS. There was an absence of the information about the exact time required for getting access to the final result. Also the cost and accessibility of using the device referring to the benefits of the resultis not obvious enough. It seems that further studies should increase the number of participants and also find other aspects and effects of using FES on MS.