Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Rosellón, 149, 08036, Barcelona, Spain.
Servicio de Rehabilitación y Fisioterapia, Quironsalud Barcelona, Plaça d'Alfonso Comín, 5, 08023, Barcelona, Spain.
J Orthop Surg Res. 2023 Sep 26;18(1):729. doi: 10.1186/s13018-023-04158-w.
Recent evidence supports the use of immersive virtual reality (VR) as a means of delivering bodily illusions that may have therapeutic potential for the treatment of musculoskeletal conditions. We wanted to investigate whether a single session of an embodiment-based immersive VR training program influences pain-free range of motion in patients with shoulder pain.
We designed a rehabilitation program based on developing ownership over a virtual body and then "exercising" the upper limb in immersive VR, while the real arm remains static. We then carried out a single-arm pre-post experiment in which 21 patients with movement-related musculoskeletal shoulder pain were exposed to the 15-min VR program and measured their active pain-free range of motion immediately before and afterwards.
We found that shoulder abduction and hand-behind-back movements, but not shoulder flexion, were significantly and clinically improved post-intervention and that the level of improvement correlated with the level of embodiment. Following this one session, at 1-week follow-up the improvements were not maintained.
Virtual embodiment may be a useful therapeutic tool to help improve range of motion in patients with movement-related shoulder pain in the short term, which in turn could expedite rehabilitation and recovery in these conditions.
最近的证据支持使用沉浸式虚拟现实（VR）作为提供身体错觉的一种手段，这可能对治疗肌肉骨骼疾病具有治疗潜力。我们想研究单次基于体现的沉浸式 VR 训练计划是否会影响肩部疼痛患者的无痛活动范围。
我们设计了一个基于发展对虚拟身体的所有权的康复计划，然后在沉浸式 VR 中“锻炼”上肢，而真实的手臂保持静止。然后，我们进行了一项单臂前后实验，其中 21 名患有与运动相关的肌肉骨骼肩部疼痛的患者接受了 15 分钟的 VR 程序治疗，并在治疗前后立即测量他们的主动无痛活动范围。
我们发现肩部外展和手在背后的运动，而不是肩部弯曲，在干预后明显且具有临床意义地改善，并且改善程度与体现程度相关。经过这一次治疗，在 1 周的随访中，改善没有得到维持。
虚拟体现可能是一种有用的治疗工具，可以帮助改善与运动相关的肩部疼痛患者的活动范围，从而加快这些情况下的康复和恢复。
