Our researchers use advanced methods, including neuroimaging, exercise science, robotics, and behavioral science, to study how MS affects people over time. This work explains how MS-related changes impact daily life and helps shape rehabilitation at different stages of the disease.
Interventions to Enhance Everyday Function
Memory and Learning Rehabilitation Combined with Exercise Training in Multiple Sclerosis
This study compares the effect of a combined cognitive rehabilitation and exercise approach on new learning and memory in people with multiple sclerosis and mobility disability.
New learning, memory, and processing-speed deficits, common in MS, negatively impact everyday life. Two established cognitive rehabilitation protocols developed by Nancy Chiaravalloti, PhD, and supported by Class I research evidence, target specific cognitive functions and enhance the ability for individuals with MS to learn and remember. The two protocols are: Kessler Foundation Strategy-based Training to Enhance Memory (KF-STEM) and Kessler Foundation modified Story Memory Technique (KF-mSMT®)
Foundation researcher Brian M. Sandroff, PhD, has accumulated strong evidence to support the use of physical exercise training, such as treadmill walking, cycling, and outdoor walking, to effectively restore functions that have been lost due to MS. Studies involve focusing on individual and synergistic effects of cognitive rehabilitation and exercise in individuals with relapsing-remitting and progressive MS.
Disease- and person-specific secondary factors from MS, such as depression, sleep disturbance, and personality changes, place significant demands on individuals’ ability to manage the illness and live fulfilling lives. Lauren Strober, PhD, researches psychosocial interventions targeting MS symptoms and occupational outcomes aimed at advancing self-efficacy, coping, and well-being through behavioral therapy and positive psychology technique
Although the visual symptoms associated with MS are well-documented, their impact has received limited attention. To address this issue, reacher Silvana Lopes Costa, PhD, is studying the link between eye movements and processing-speed deficits in MS and developing protocols for assessing cognitive function using eye trackers, irrespective of an individual’s motor abilities.
Your Support Drives Change
When you give to Kessler Foundation, you make a difference in the quality of life for people with multiple sclerosis.
Therese Bertrand, Finding My Way Forward With Multiple Sclerosis
A phone call changed Therese Bertrand's life. It brought a diagnosis she had never expected...
Beth Holcomb Is Back on the Ball with MS
Beth Holcomb has lived with multiple sclerosis for nearly twenty years. “Symptoms come and go, but fatigue remains,” explains Beth...
Carla Basante Adapts and Gives Back After MS
Carla Basante lives with multiple sclerosis and has been a longtime participant in Kessler Foundation research...
Our Multiple Sclerosis Scientists in Action
