This might be totally worthless, but was posted on another forum, one that discusses West Wing television show:

The chess bit - MS is a disease that affects the central nervous system, as Leo described to CJ. Basically to recap what Leo said, MS affects the reasoning and logic, decision making, and event processing parts of the brain. Playing chess has been proven to strengthen these brain fucntions and improve neurological pathways in the brain. So in essence, chess helps to counteract the MS attacks by boosting the part of the brain that is at risk.
If you aren't into chess, do you like puzzles and mysteries? They also help create alternate paths in the brain...

Thinking of you!