Managing The Symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis

Abstract

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic autoimmune disease of the central nervous system that is characterized by recurrent bouts of acute neuroinflammation and chronic neurodegeneration. Treatments for MS are aimed at prevention of disability in the future or restoring function in the present. Prevention treatments disrupt the underlying disease pathology, whereas restorative treatments address not only the disease’s primary effects on the central nervous system, but also secondary effects on other parts of the body and tertiary effects on each patient’s psychosocial functioning. MS symptoms can have primary, secondary, and tertiary components, which can interlock and reinforce each other. 1, 137 Restorative treatment should tease apart these components and address them separately. In this article on symptom management, we focus on treatments that aim to maximize each component of function.