Multiple Sclerosis and Whole Body Vibration:
A Winning Combination^*

by
Kelly Price
Nashville Medical News
October 2006

Lynn Mitchell has a brilliant smile on her face, a shiny engagement ring on her finger, and a new outlook on her future. She also has MS. Since she was diagnosed ten years ago at the age of twenty, she has battled the progressive limitations the disease has put on her body and depression that restricted her to her home. “When they told me I had MS, I didn’t even know what the letters stood for,” she remembers. “But I learned very quickly. I also learned you have to help yourself and not depend on medications.”

For the last six months, Lynn has been part of a new program for MS patients combining progressive strength training with Whole Body Vibration and has had what she calls “amazing results." The Multiple Sclerosis Strength and Stability Program was founded and is directed by Charles G. Oakes, PhD., following early consultations with Dr. Harold Moses Jr., Assistant Professor, Department of Neurology, Multiple Sclerosis Center at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, and Irv Rubenstein, PhD., exercise physiologist and founder and president of S.T.E.P.S., Inc., Nashville’s first personal training center. The program adds Whole Body Vibration (WBV) to progressive strength training in hopes of hastening the rehabilitation of MS patients beyond what traditional physical and occupational therapies accomplish.

Vibration technology was developed in the 1970s by Russian scientists to counteract the loss of bone mass experienced by their cosmonauts during long space missions. Knowing that bones get stronger when the surrounding muscle fibers contract repeatedly, the Russians mechanically produced the stimulus of displacement by vibration, forcing the muscles to react by contracting and relaxing involuntarily. The body’s natural reflexive response to disruptions in gravity is to engage every muscle in a peak contraction in order to stabilize itself. This reaction causes an enormous increase in blood flow to muscles, tendons, ligaments, and tissues, releasing hormones that are critical in healing damaged tissue.

Elite athletes in Europe who are aware of the advantages of WBV in rehabilitating damaged muscles and developing strength have been using vibration technology in their training and conditioning programs for three decades. Vibration technology came to the United States via professional football and basketball teams for use in expediting rehab from injuries. The Tennessee Titans have three Power Plate ® Advanced Vibration Technology machines in their training facility and even take one on the road with them for away games.

WBV operates at the neural level, triggering a reflexive neural response to disruptions in stability. With WBV these disruptions come in the form of 30-50 vibrations per second. An assumption that a technology that elicits its benefits at the truly neural level may have enormous potential when applied to individuals living with conditions that result from neural deficiencies, such as MS, was part of the design of Oakes’ unique program.

The MS program is based on two tenants that are based on extensive scientific studies: progressive strength training is as beneficial to MS clients as it is to non-MS clients; and WBV is proven to augment and hasten progressive strength training in normal populations. Oakes is investigating whether a program using these two principals in combination is efficacious in treating MS clients.

Early this year, in consultation with Moses and Rubenstein and the local MS chapter, Oakes began using a regimen that combined progressive strength training and use of the Power Plate machine to improve the functional ability and conditioning of some of his clients who are among the two thousand MS sufferers in the Nashville area.

“As far as I know, we are the only ones in the country systematically using progressive strength training with WBV for MS patients”, Oakes said. “We don’t know why the combination works, but we know that it does”, he added, describing its pragmatic validity.

In February, when she first came to the S.T.E.P.S., Mitchell remembers she lacked self-assurance and walked tentatively with a cane and had to lean on the wall. In her assessments, she failed the cognitive, strength, and balance tests that Oakes administered. After a few sessions using progressive strength training based on the established MS protocols that are recommended by the American College of Sports Medicine and the National Strength Conditioning Association, Oakes put her on the Power Plate WBV machine. She was amazed by the result. The acute effect of the first treatment lasted for four days. Now, after six months, she says using the machine has made her more energetic and her muscles more conditioned and stimulated. She can see so much progress that “I feel that I’m almost back to where I was when first diagnosed."

The Middle Tennessee Chapter of the MS Society provides need-based scholarships for patients who participate in the program. Meredith Hillin, a Program Coordinator, says the Chapter is “100% behind the program. There have been some amazing, phenomenal successes.”

Oakes hopes to be able to expand the services to MS patients who live more than 50 miles from Nashville who cannot get to S.T.E.P.S. on a regular basis. He is exploring methods to take the program “on the road” and identifying ways patients could participate via the Internet and telephone. While the professional full size model of the Power Plate costs around $11,000, units suitable for use in a home-based program can be ordered on the Internet from Costco for under $2,000.

Dr. Harold Moses stresses that this exercise program is one aspect of a total approach to a chronic illness such as MS, and it must be combined with a good diet, proper rest, avoidance of tobacco and excessive alcohol, and management of stress for optimal results.

He adds, “I am encouraged by the early results utilizing WBV for people with MS. I am hopeful that this technique will help improve well-being and strength, endurance and coordination. We will be studying the role of WBV in people with MS to see how much it does help. We plan to do this in the near term.”

(*reprinted here from pre-publication draft)