The effect of Yoga techniques on quality of life among women with Multiple Sclerosis

Introduction: Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, self-immunity and degenerative of Central Nervous System (CNS) and a inflammatory disease that affects different aspects of patients life quality. This research was aimed to determine the effect of Yoga techniques on quality of life among women with MS. Methods: This clinical trial study was carried out on 60 patients with MS at Yasuoj University of medical sciences. For data collection, a questionnaire containing demographic information of patients and MSQoL-54 questionnaire for quality of life were used. Patients were randomly divided into two equal control and case groups. Then, their activities connected with perception, social relations and sexual activities were evaluated. Case group were gone under Yoga-therapy for a period of 3 months and each month included 8 sessions of 1-1.5 hours and no intervention was done for control group. The activities connected with perception, social relations and sexual activities of both groups were evaluated and compared with each other one month after Yoga-therapy. Paired t-test was used for statistical analysis by means of SPSS software. Results: The results of the research showed that, Yoga caused the relative improvement of quality of life of patients in such a way that, the mean of perception related activities changed from 15.6±5.5 to 18.3±4.45 (P=0.001), social relations from 3.5±1.2 to 4.2±1 (P=0.001) and sexual activities from 5.8±6.15 to 4.8±5.18 (P=0.007) while, no statistical significant different was observed among control group. Conclusion: Yoga techniques can improve quality of life (the activities connected with perception, social relations and sexual activities) among patients with MS.