European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine

Abstract

Background: Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT) is the most common neuromuscular disorder presented clinically as peripheral distal sensory and motor neuropathy with longstanding gait difficulty and frequent tripping. Objective: This review assessed a myriad of exercises including resistance training, endurance training, physical activity, and orthosis potentially beneficial for CMT patients. Material & Methods: Literature was searched mainly through electronic journals with the help of search engines (ISI Web of Knowledge, OvidSP and PubMed database). Full text scrutinization of most articles was undertaken while for some articles only necessary abstracts were reviewed. Results: The results showed that all training modalities: resistance training, endurance training, and physical activity in conjunction with orthosis is needed to ameliorate CMT severity and progression. Conclusion: The current literature strengthens the existing paradigm of advantageous effects of exercise in CMT patients with future studies concentrating on microarray gene analysis and fractional protein synthesis are required to further elucidate the pathophysiological and signalling mechanisms of CMT in context of exercise training