Physical rehabilitation has a positive effect on disability in multiple sclerosis patients

To the Editor:

Solari et al.1 and Freeman et al.2 reported on two studies that evaluated rehabilitation programs for hospital based samples of people with MS. These studies are welcome and worthwhile, as there is a dearth of rehabilitation research for this disease. Although there have been some problems with using the short form 36 (SF-36) in MS,3 its use by both research teams, in addition to other physical and socio-psychological scales, ensured that the outcome measures were comprehensive. However, both studies presented changes in health status for the SF-36 as physical and mental health composite scale scores rather than individual scale scores. We have reservations about doing this in an MS population.

The physical composite scale comprises summations of physical function, physical role, bodily pain, and general health scales.1,4 The mental health composite scale comprises summations of mental health, emotional role, vitality, and social functioning scales.1,4 Raw scores are linearly transformed from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating better health. Freeman et al.2 presented baseline individual scale scores with a …