De Giorgi Roberto, Fortini Antonio, Aghilarre Federica, Gentili Federico, Morone Giovanni, Antonucci Gabriella, Vetrano Mario, Tieri Gaetano, Iosa Marco
Casa di Cura Nomentana Hospital, 00013 Rome, Italy.
Department of Life, Health and Environmental Sciences, University of L'Aquila, 67100 L'Aquila, Italy.
J Clin Med. 2023 Mar 29;12(7):2590. doi: 10.3390/jcm12072590.
In neurorehabilitation, some studies reported the effective use of art therapy for reducing psychological disorders and for enhancing physical functions and cognitive abilities. Neuroaesthetical studies showed that seeing an art masterpiece can spontaneously elicit a widespread brain arousal, also involving motor networks. To combine contemplative and performative benefits of art therapy protocols, we have developed an immersive virtual reality system, giving subjects the illusion that they are able to paint a copy of famous artistic paintings. We previously observed that during this virtual task, subjects perceived less fatigue and performed more accurate movements than when they were asked to color the virtual canvas. We named this upshot the Michelangelo effect. The aim of this study was to test the rehabilitative efficacy of our system. Ten patients with stroke in the subacute phase were enrolled and trained for one month with virtual art therapy (VAT) and physiotherapy. Their data were compared with those of ten patients matched for pathology, age and clinical parameters, trained only with conventional therapy for the same amount of time. The VAT group showed a significantly higher improvements in the Barthel Index score, a measure of independency in activities of daily living (66 ± 33% vs. 31 ± 28%, = 0.021), and in pinching strength (66 ± 39% vs. 18 ± 33%, = 0.008), with respect to the group treated with conventional rehabilitation.
在神经康复领域，一些研究报告称艺术疗法在减轻心理障碍、增强身体机能和认知能力方面有有效应用。神经美学研究表明，观看一件艺术杰作能够自发地引发广泛的大脑兴奋，其中也涉及运动网络。为了结合艺术疗法方案中冥想和实践的益处，我们开发了一种沉浸式虚拟现实系统，让受试者产生一种他们能够临摹著名艺术画作的错觉。我们之前观察到，在这项虚拟任务中，与被要求给虚拟画布上色时相比，受试者感觉疲劳减轻，动作更准确。我们将这一结果称为米开朗基罗效应。本研究的目的是测试我们系统的康复效果。招募了10名亚急性期中风患者，采用虚拟艺术疗法（VAT）和物理疗法进行为期一个月的训练。将他们的数据与10名在病理、年龄和临床参数方面匹配，但仅接受相同时长传统疗法训练的患者的数据进行比较。与接受传统康复治疗的组相比，VAT组在Barthel指数评分（日常生活活动独立性的一项指标，66±33%对31±28%，P = 0.021）和捏力（66±39%对18±33%，P = 0.008）方面有显著更高的改善。
