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Updated: Oct 20, 2026
Adapted Resistance Training Improves Strength in Eight Weeks in Individuals with Multiple Sclerosis
Published on: January 29, 2016
Walking and strength outcomes of targeted hip resistance training may be predicted by both MRI and clinical measures
Nora E Fritz1, Ani Eloyan2, Jennifer Keller3
1Center for Movement Studies, Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD, United States of America; Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Baltimore, MD, United States of America; Wayne State University, Departments of Health Care Sciences and Neurology, Detroit, MI, United States of America.
Background:
Compromised neural function contributes sensation, strength, and walking deficits in persons with multiple sclerosis (PwMS). Progressive resistance training (PRT) promotes neural adaptations, leading to favorable functional outcomes, while advances in MRI enable the evaluation of white matter tract pathology in vivo. The purpose of this work was to examine the utility of MRI with clinical measures to predict exercise responsiveness to PRT.
Methods:
Twenty-eight PwMS (mean age: 49.3 and EDSS: 3.8) and 26 controls (mean age: 50) participated in 12-weeks of PRT. Primary outcomes were change in walk velocity and hip strength. Model predictors included baseline demographics, falls, walk velocity, strength, cognitive performance, quality of life, vibration sensation and 3T MRI measures of spinal cord area (SCA) and corticospinal tract (CST) fractional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD) and magnetization transfer ratio (MTR). A random forest procedure was used as an exploratory analysis for prediction of exercise responsiveness. The predictive accuracy was measured using the normalized mean squared error (MSE) within a leave-one-out cross-validation procedure, but was not externally validated.
Results:
Strength change predictors included baseline strength, diagnosis, age, disease severity, falls, cognitive performance, quality of life, vibration, and CST (FA, MD, and MTR) (normalized MSE: 0.1792). Walk velocity change predictors included baseline walk velocity, age, disease severity, sex, cognitive performance, vibration, and CST (FA, MD, and MTR) (normalized MSE: 0.2147).
Conclusion:
A combination of motor, cognitive, and MRI measures may predict responsiveness to a PRT program in PwMS. These data confirm that optimizing function relies on knowledge of pathology, disability level and intervention selection in pwMS, and that using imaging information in combination with functional performance may offer advantages to optimizing functional recovery for pwMS.
