(Press-News.org) DETROIT – A collaborative team of researchers and students from Wayne State University’s Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, School of Medicine, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Institute of Gerontology are studying the impact of a backward walking program on individuals with multiple sclerosis.
The study, “Structural and Functional Changes With 8 Weeks of Backward Walking Training in Multiple Sclerosis: A Case Series,” was published in the January issue of the Journal of Neurologic Physical Therapy.
The team led by Dr. Nora Fritz, director of research and professor in the Department of Health Care Sciences in the Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences and the Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, conducted the study to determine if backward walking training could improve mobility, balance and brain structure, and reduce the risk of falling. Participants were involved in eight weeks of treadmill and overground backward walking therapies.
“The results of this pilot trial indicated that backward walking training led to measurable improvements in postural stability and gait speed in a majority of those participating in the study,” said Fritz. “This suggests that backward walking may trigger positive physical adaptations.”
The authors indicated additional larger clinical trials are needed to confirm the benefits.
“This novel physical therapy intervention was designed to combat the progressive movement challenges associated with MS,” said Fritz. “We measured structural changes in the brain’s white matter in three brain regions – the body of the corpus callosum, the superior cerebellar peduncle, and the corticospinal tract. The results of this small trial suggest that this type of therapy may promote neuroplasticity in brain areas related to balance. Our next step is to conduct a larger trial to determine the potential impact this type of therapy may have on all MS patients.”
Additional Wayne State University researchers on the study included, Maryam Abbawi, BS and new Translational Neuroscience Program student; Michael VanNostrand, Ph.D.; Patrick Monaghan, Ph.D.; Taylor Takla, BS; Ana Daugherty, Ph.D.; and Jeffrey Stanley, Ph.D.
For more information about the study, visit https://cdn-links.lww.com/permalink/jnpt/a/jnpt_50_1_2025_12_22_fritz_jnpt-d-24-00138r2_sdc1.mp4
The study was funded by a University Research Grant from Wayne State University.
# # #
Wayne State University is one of the nation’s pre-eminent public research universities in an urban setting. Through its multidisciplinary approach to research and education, and its ongoing collaboration with government, industry and other institutions, the university seeks to enhance economic growth and improve the quality of life in the city of Detroit, state of Michigan and throughout the world. For more information about research at Wayne State University, visit research.wayne.edu.
END
Backward walking study offers potential new treatment to improve mobility and decrease falls in multiple sclerosis patients
2026-02-03
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Top recognition awarded to 11 stroke researchers for science, brain health contributions
2026-02-03
Embargoed until Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026, 10 a.m. CT/11 a.m. ET
NEW ORLEANS, Feb. 3, 2026 – Eleven top scientists in stroke and brain health will be recognized for their individual exceptional professional achievements and contributions to stroke and brain health care and research during the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference 2026. The meeting will be held in New Orleans, Feb. 3-6, and is a world premier meeting for researchers and clinicians dedicated to the science of stroke and brain health.
The awardees include five groundbreaking scientists who have devoted ...
New paper proposes a framework for assessing the trustworthiness of research
2026-02-03
Media Contact: pr@cos.io
A new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) proposes a systems-level framework for evaluating the trustworthiness of research findings across methods and approaches.
The paper, “A Framework for Assessing the Trustworthiness of Research Findings”, is authored by a multidisciplinary group of research leaders with expertise in metascience, research integrity and assessment, and science communication: Brian Nosek (Center for Open Science; University of Virginia), David Allison (Baylor College of Medicine), Kathleen Hall Jamieson ...
Porto Summit drives critical cooperation on submarine cable resilience
2026-02-03
Porto, Portugal, 3 February 2026 – Governments, industry representatives and international organizations representing over 70 countries at the International Submarine Cable Resilience Summit 2026 reaffirmed today the need to strengthen support for the subsea cables at the heart of global digital communications.
A declaration issued at the summit’s closing in Porto, Portugal, together with a set of recommendations developed by the International Advisory Body on Submarine Cable Resilience, offered guidance to bolster international cooperation across the public and private sectors to boost the resilience of this vital shared infrastructure, ...
University of Cincinnati Cancer Center tests treatment using ‘glioblastoma-on-a-chip’ and wafer technology
2026-02-03
A multidisciplinary team of University of Cincinnati Cancer Center researchers has received a $40,000 Ride Cincinnati grant to study a delayed release preparation, or wafer, of an immunostimulatory molecule to stimulate the central nervous system (CNS) immune system after surgery to remove glioblastoma, a form of primary brain cancer.
Jonathan Forbes, MD, the project’s principal investigator, explained glioblastomas are the most common type of primary cancer of the brain. Only 5% to 7% of patients with a glioblastoma survive five years after diagnosis.
Effective treatments for these tumors have been hard to identify for decades due to two primary ...
IPO pay gap hiding in plain sight: Study reveals hidden cost of ‘cheap stock’
2026-02-03
Before the opening bell ever rings on a company’s initial public offerings, some of the executives may already be sitting on a quiet windfall.
An IPO can act as a source of “cheap money” because of how stock options are valued before a company goes public. In private firms, options are supposed to be issued “at the money,” with exercise prices reflecting the fair value of the shares at the time of the grant. But without a public market price, those valuations rely on models and judgment, giving companies wide discretion.
When the ...
It has been clarified that a fungus living in our body can make melanoma more aggressive
2026-02-03
Cancer is one of the causes responsible for the most deaths worldwide; in 2020, for example, it resulted in ten million deaths. It has been estimated that micro-organism infections caused between 13-18% of these cases. Until now, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified thirteen micro-organisms as carcinogenic, which include viruses, bacteria and parasites. However, recent studies have shown that there are other micro-organism types linked to cancer; some of them are fungi.
The Candida albicans fungus is one of them: “This fungus is part of ...
Paid sick leave as disease prevention
2026-02-03
Home service workers—those who provide care, inspections, or repairs inside private homes—can often lack paid sick leave, making illness a direct financial risk. New research from George Mason University College of Public Health suggests paid sick leave should be understood not only as an employee benefit, but as a preventive health intervention.
In the study led by assistant nursing professor Suyoung Kwon, paid sick leave was linked to lower perceived infection risk, reduced job stress, and higher job satisfaction. During the early months of COVID-19, the research team surveyed more than 1,600 home service workers in South Korea, including home nurses, childcare ...
Did we just see a black hole explode? Physicists at UMass Amherst think so—and it could explain (almost) everything
2026-02-03
AMHERST, Mass. — In 2023, a subatomic particle called a neutrino crashed into Earth with such a high amount of energy that it should have been impossible. In fact, there are no known sources anywhere in the universe capable of producing such energy—100,000 times more than the highest-energy particle ever produced by the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator. However, a team of physicists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently hypothesized that something like this could happen when a special kind of black hole, called a “quasi-extremal primordial black hole,” explodes.
In new research published by Physical Review ...
Study highlights stressed faults in potential shale gas region in South Africa
2026-02-03
A swarm of small earthquakes within the Karoo Basin in South Africa has revealed a critically stressed fault that could be perturbed by potential shale gas exploration in the area, according to a new report in Seismological Research Letters.
The analysis by Benjamin Whitehead of the University of Cape Town and colleagues concludes that the Karoo microseismicity occurred along a buried fault that may extend through sedimentary layers to the crystalline bedrock, which would increase its vulnerability to stresses produced ...
Human vaginal microbiome is shaped by competition for resources
2026-02-03
The vaginal microbiota is shaped by bacterial access to specific nutritional resources, influencing health outcomes. This study uses a resource-based model supported by clinical data to identify key ecological mechanisms underlying microbiota composition and potential bacterial vaginosis interventions.
In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available paper in PLOS Biology: https://plos.io/4qaZ2kt
Article title: Resource landscape shapes the composition and stability of the human vaginal microbiota
Author countries: France, United States
Funding: Research reported in this publication was supported by the Fondation pour ...