Editorial - Volume 19, Issue 4 - July 2017

If you were among the more than 2000 attendees of the 2017 CMSC annual meeting in New Orleans, I hope that you enjoyed the diversity of topics covered in the many sessions, as well as the city's history, culture, food, and entertainment. As I do every year, I took back home new ideas to implement in my practice or to test in my research. If you were unable to attend, you can now access the presentations and posters on the CMSC's website. You can also browse the abstracts in the IJMSC annual meeting supplement. The articles in this issue reflect the involvement of all disciplines in the fight against MS that permeated the annual meeting.

Cognitive-motor interference, a well-known phenomenon demonstrated by the simultaneous performance of a motor and a cognitive task, has only recently been studied in MS. The article from Ciol and colleagues, for which CE credit is offered, explores the effect of dual tasking on functional mobility, through changes in the time to complete the Timed Up and Go (TUG) test while performing a cognitive task. In MS patients with known ambulation limitations, adding even a simple cognitive task resulted in a greater increase in the time needed to complete the TUG compared with controls, suggesting that these patients may experience difficulty in comparable real-life situations.

Focusing on another important aspect of mobility, Zelaya and colleagues report an association between urinary urgency with incontinence and recurrent falls over a period of 3 months. Whether interventions targeting the bladder result in a decreased occurrence of falls remains to be investigated.

The emotional consequences of MS, although less visible than motor impairment, are at least equally impactful. Based on data from an institutional clinical registry, Greenberg and colleagues found that patients treated in an MS center who were younger and had more severe depression were more likely to receive psychological services within 1 year of their first neurology appointment. This study illustrates how data routinely collected at the time of clinic visits can be analyzed to determine practice patterns. Depression can be a result of difficulty coping with the consequences of MS. The article by Saffari and colleagues provides cross-sectional validation data on the Jalowiec Coping Scale, opening the door to its use in the MS population.

Several articles relate to the impact of individual characteristics, attitudes, beliefs, and preferences on the management of MS. Browne and colleagues remind us that beliefs regarding bladder dysfunction among health-care professionals may influence clinical practice. Mansfield and colleagues, using a discrete-choice experiment, show how preferences regarding the attributes of disease-modifying therapies for MS (including efficacy, route/frequency of administration, and side effects) vary between subgroups of MS patients. Adding to the body of knowledge on gender differences in perceptions and behaviors in individuals with MS, Ploughman and colleagues found that older men with MS experienced lower perceived health, resilience, and participation in life roles than older women with MS.

We extend our congratulations to the winners of this year's Herndon Award for Outstanding IJMSC Article: Brittany Litster, Kirsten M. Fiest, Scott B. Patten, John D. Fisk, John R. Walker, Lesley A. Graff, James M. Bolton, Jitender Sareen, James J. Marriott, Lindsay I. Berrigan, Charles N. Bernstein, Ryan Zarychanski, Alexander Singer, Carol A. Hitchon, Christine A. Peschken, and Ruth Ann Marrie. Their article “Screening Tools for Anxiety in People with Multiple Sclerosis: A Systematic Review” was published in the November/December 2016 issue. The award, which is named for IJMSC founding editor Robert M. Herndon, is given by the CMSC for the best article published in the journal in the preceding calendar year.

In addition, I am pleased to report that the journal has recently received a 2017 APEX Award for Publication Excellence. This award is given for excellence in professional communications, including graphic design and editorial content. This is the fifth consecutive year that the IJMSC has won this award.

I will leave you with a note from New Orleans. As I listened to the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, I couldn't help but draw a parallel with the multidisciplinary MS care team: all members of the team are equally valued, and work together in the pursuit of an endeavor that transcends them. And, as Louis Armstrong said, “If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know. . . .”