News
New website for people with multiple sclerosis
7 January 2009
MS Invigor8 is a website developed by researchers at the University
of Southampton to treat fatigue in people with multiple sclerosis (MS)
using cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT).
The research team led by Professor Rona Moss-Morris at the School of
Psychology, with the technological side led by Dr Gary Wills at the
School of Electronics and Computer Science, now seeks 40 people in the
UK who experience MS fatigue to take part in the web-based trial which
will begin on 12 January.
The team adopted an approach which used eight sessions of manualised
CBT to treat fatigue in MS effectively, and developed an Internet based
version of the package.
'We know this works because six months after the manual treatment,
not only had fatigue substantially reduced, but people with MS reported
levels of fatigue that were significantly lower than those of a matched
healthy, non-fatigued group,' said Professor Moss-Morris.
The researchers found that a limitation of the manual package is that
skilled CBT therapists are not available to many people with MS due to
the lack of available resources and difficulty of access. The new
web-based package will enable effective treatment for more people with
minimal therapist time.
The team used expert services users to work with them to develop
eight sessions to assess users’ levels of fatigue, their patterns of
activity and rest and then to enable them to manage issues such as sleep
patterns and stress. The programme is interactive and personalised
allowing people to set goals for managing their fatigue and work towards
developing and maintaining a healthier lifestyle.
Lawrence Gilbert, an expert service user who has been very involved
in the process from the outset, said: 'MS can be like a Duracell
battery, you could be going along fine and then suddenly the energy
drains out of you. My concern has always been that the fatigue, which is
a part of the condition, could be wrongly attributed to being just "all
in the mind". The approach taken by the Southampton team is not like
that at all.'
More information about the programme can be found at:
http://octopussy.ecs.soton.ac.uk/MSInvigor8/Intro/index.php
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