Enhancing Caregiver and Patient Wellbeing Through a Physical Activity Intervention: Afolasade Fakolade, PhD

WATCH TIME: 5 minutes

"We wanted to know how safe and feasible this intervention would be and if the intervention would have any impact on physical activity levels, which was our primary outcome. Our results did show that yes, this intervention was safe. We had minimal adverse events, so there was nothing to be concerned about in terms of the intervention itself from a safety perspective.”

According to research, patients living with moderate to severe multiple sclerosis (MS) and their caregivers do not sufficiently participate in physical activity to benefit their health.¹ Therefore, dyadic interventions that are focused on physical activity are needed to help each individual patient and the dyad as a whole. Recently, researchers developed the Physical Activity Together for MS (PAT-MS), which is a group-based, remote-delivered, dyadic physical activity intervention for both the patients with MS and their caregivers.

Afolasade Fakolade, PhD, assistant professor at Queen’s University, presented findings from a randomized controlled feasibility trial of PAT-MS at the 2023 Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers (CMSC) Annual Meeting, held May 31 to June 3, in Aurora, Colorado. In her talk, she discussed the conduct of the trial which was centered on the safety and feasibility of the physical activity dyadic intervention for both patients with MS and their caregivers.²

Fakolade sat down in an interview with NeurologyLive® at the meeting to talk about the outcomes from the intervention, as well as how the dyadic intervention differed from other traditional caregiver support with physical activity interventions. She also spoke about the primary outcomes assessed during the pilot trial of the 12-week intervention and shared some of the suggestions for improvement that were provided by the participants, despite the overall satisfaction from the intervention.

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REFERENCES
1. Fakolade A, McKenna O, Kamel R, et al. Prioritizing Components of a Dyadic Physical Activity Intervention for People With Moderate to Severe Multiple Sclerosis and Their Care Partners: A Modified e-Delphi Study. Int J MS Care. 2023;25(1):8-14. doi:10.7224/1537-2073.2021-079
2. Fakolade A. Physical Activity Together for Multiple Sclerosis (PAT-MS): Preliminary Results of a Randomized Controlled Feasibility Trial. Presented at: 2023 CMSC Annual Meeting; held May 31-June 3; Aurora, CO. REH04.