The acute effect of cervical mobilization on balance in patients with multiple sclerosis: a single-blind, randomized, controlled trial

ABSTRACT

The cervical region plays an important role in providing proprioceptive and vestibular input to the postural control system. Objective. To investigate the effect of cervical mobilization on balance in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. Methods. The study was undertaken at the neurological rehabilitation unit with 36 MS participants who were assigned randomly to the study (n = 18) and control group (n = 18). While the study group received a single session of 15 minutes of cervical and soft tissue mobilization, no intervention was applied to the control group to investigate the learning effect of the assessment. Patients were evaluated using Computerized Dynamic Posturography (CDP) (Sensory Organization Test (SOT), Limits of Stability (LoS), and Adaptation Test (ADT)), which reflects postural stability. Results. In the study group, a treatment effect was found on the vestibular ratio (VEST) score (p < 0.001) and the composite score of SOT (p = 0.002). Improvements were achieved in all parameters of the LoS and ADT in the study group. There was no statistically significant difference in terms of CDP results in the control group. Conclusion. Cervical mobilization has beneficial effects on balance in MS patients. Our findings support that cervical mobilization can be included in MS balance rehabilitation programs.

KEYWORDS:

• Multiple sclerosis
• neurological rehabilitation
• cervical mobilization
• balance
• vestibular system

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Prof. Dr. Kadriye Armutlu, who passed away due to her death, for her contributions to the study.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.