Multiple Sclerosis Walking Experts

To address this issue, a panel of nurses and physical therapists met in 2009 to discuss how to help improve the diagnosis, assessment, and treatment of walking impairment in people with multiple sclerosis. Their conclusions were published in the International Journal of MS Care in its Spring 2010 issue.

The panel members, led by June Halper, director of the International Organization of Multiple Sclerosis Nurses, and Amy Perrin Ross, neuroscience coordinator at Loyola University Medical Center in Illinois, noted that many patients and their care partners don’t even have a basic understanding of how multiple sclerosis progresses, relapses, and what impact it has on their walking. The panel emphasized that effective treatment of multiple sclerosis requires a multidisciplinary approach and effective communication between the patient and his or her healthcare team.

The reason people with multiple sclerosis and their care partners don’t speak to their physicians about their walking issues, says June Halper, is because rehabilitation specialists and physicians have minimal training in this area. “Even physicians,” she says, “have minimal experience or evidence upon which to base their practice on the value of walking, mobility and what to do to improve it. Education and information is vital to close that gap.”