VIDEO: Study characterizes patients with MS seeking treatment for cannabis use disorder

DENVER — Researchers have recruited women with multiple sclerosis for a study using a home-based telehealth intervention for cannabis use disorder, according to a poster presented at the American Academy of Neurology annual meeting.

“We recruited nationally, a small pilot study, looking just at women early in disease with relapsing remitting MS,” Leigh E. Charvet, PhD, a professor of neurology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, said in this Healio video. “We were overwhelmed by the response, indicating that this is a real problem in people living with MS. It’s estimated that almost half of people with MS use cannabis.”

Many see cannabis as safe and helpful, Charvet said, but at least one in five people who use cannabis develop dependence.

“It’s been shown that people coming off cannabis use with MS have improvement in mood and cognitive functioning,” she said.

“We’re presenting here our baseline of recruiting patients coming to us for this accessible intervention to reduce their cannabis use and evaluate whether they feel better in terms of their overall symptom burden.”