The effects of aerobic training with and without Blood flow restricted in stride length and balance of women with Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple Sclerosis is an autoimmune disease which causes the damage the myelin system of the central nervous system. The aim of present study was to investigate the effects of aerobic training with and without blood flow restricted on stride length and balance in women with Multiple Sclerosis. 24 volunteer patients with disability scale of 1 - 4 (age: 37.08 ± 8.23 years, weight: 61.54 ± 8.58 kg and height: 159.5 ± 7.27 cm) were randomly divided into two groups: including aerobic training without Blood flow restricted group (n=12) and with Blood flow restricted training group (BFR, n=12). Both groups pedaled on aqua cycle (3 sets of 6 minutes with 1 min of rest between sets and 60-65% HRmax) for 6 weeks and 3 sessions in a week. To restrict the blood flow was used cuff with pressure of 96 ± 10 mmHg on the upper part of the foot. the stride length and balance were measure by camera and berg balance scale, respectively. Analyze of Covariance and Bonferroni post hoc at significant level of p < 0.05 were used to analysis the data. The results indicated that both of training caused significant increase in balance (p<0.05) and left stride length (p<0.05) but they induced significant decrease in right stride length(p<0.05). It seems that both of aerobic training with and without blood flow restricted caused the improvement in balance of patient with MS but in relation to their effect on stride length is need more consideration.