Effect of Stability Training on Balance Recovery in Multiple Sclerosis Patients using Sample Entropy as a Nonlinear Analysis Method

Introduction: Destroy of myelin in multiple sclerosis (MS) Patients, causes problems in the transmission of nerve impulses which result in some impairments in neuromuscular system, including patients balance disorders. As changes in complexity of a time series data represent latent information among them, measuring and analysis of body center of pressure during various activities is an efficient method to study the neuromuscular system and maintaining of balance. This would be possible with the help of Entropy measurement as useful method to study about complexity of the body kinematics. Methods and materials: Center of Pressure (COP) fluctuations signals were recorded from 20 MS patients before and after 24 sessions of balance exercises and then analyzed them with two methods of Entropy Measuring. Results: Results of both methods showed a significant increase in Entropy Measure of patients COP fluctuations after 12 weeks of exercises. Increasing entropy of COP’s fluctuations in frontal plane were more than sagittal ones. It was identifiable in both methods. Conclusion: Increasing the amount of entropy measure indicated beneficial influence of exercises on recovery of balance system in MS patients. So these kinds of exercises could be used as an efficiently clinical Intervention for MS Patients. Key Words: Sample Entropy, Multiple Sclerosis, Balance Exercises, Locus of Body Center of Pressure