"A trial to determine the benefits of vibration therapy for multiple sclerosis sufferers is having an immediate impact on participants, one stating that she could feel her feet again, and another saying the treatment left her legs tingling and buzzing in a way they hadn't felt in years.
Study supervisor Dr Steve Stannard says the trial was devised to see whether side-to-side alternating vibration therapy was able to assist MS sufferers, who often became unable to move their muscles normally due to damage caused in the central nervous system.
“People with MS have a neural condition, which means that their brain often can't generate enough neural input to have their muscles contract and move in a fully co-ordinated way,” Dr Stannard says. “The vibration stimulus is thought to cause a reflex contraction of muscle so in MS patients this might be therapeutic - it's a way of side-stepping the brain and making the muscles contract.”