The effect of exercise therapy in multiple sclerosis-related depression; a systematic review

Background and Objective Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is the most common demyelinating disease among young adults resulting in a range of physical complications that is sometimes accompanied by psychiatric disorders, including depression. Recently large body of researches have highlighted the role of exercise training in the improvement of depressive disorders among adult patients. Since it is still not clear whether exercise training is efficient to ameliorate MS-related depression, the purpose of this study is to accumulate evidence on the effect of exercise therapy in multiple sclerosis-related depression. Search Method A comprehensive search on PubMed, Google Scholar, and Science direct was performed by keywords including Multiple Sclerosis, depression, exercise therapy, physical training, and quality of life. Articles through 2009-2019 were extracted in order to consider in the current study. Findings Exercise training significantly reduced depressive symptoms, and depression scores were significantly lower in the exercise group compared to non-exercise. One study shows 6-month yoga program improves both the quality of life and depressive symptoms in patients as well as aerobic exercises. Resistance and endurance exercises with no remarkable differences improve MS psychological symptoms in individuals. Various studies used different exercise types to estimate the effect size of exercise and did not distinguish between them. Conclusion Different types of exercise therapy with or without other treatments are beneficial approaches to decline the manifestation of MS. Considering all aspects of different physical training in patients with depression, and severe grades of MS would be the purpose of future studies as it has not been investigated seriously.

Keywords:

Multiple Sclerosis , depression , exercise therapy