Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Jul 1, 2022
Open Peer Review Period: Jul 1, 2022 - Jul 26, 2022
Date Accepted: Sep 21, 2022
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Virtual Reality Augmented Physiotherapy for Chronic Pain in Youth: Protocol for a randomized controlled trial enhanced with single case experimental design
ABSTRACT
Background:
Chronic musculoskeletal (MSK) pain is a prominent health concern, resulting in pain-related disability, loss of functioning and high healthcare costs. Physiotherapy rehabilitation is a gold standard treatment for improving functioning in youth with chronic MSK. However, increasing physical activity can feel unattainable for many adolescents due to pain related fear and movement avoidance. Virtual reality (VR) offers an immersive experience that can interrupt the fear-avoidance cycle and improve engagement in physiotherapy. Despite promising initial findings, data are limited and often lack the rigor required to establish VR as an evidence-based treatment for MSK pain.
Objective:
This trial evaluates pain rehabilitation virtual reality (PRVR) for adolescents with MSK pain. This protocol paper outlines the rationale, design, and implementation of a two-group randomized control trial (RCT) enhanced with Single Case Experimental Design (SCED). The objective of this RCT is to test this advancement in VR technology by providing new treatment solutions targeting nonpharmacological movement facilitation.
Methods:
Primary outcomes include physical function and engagement in VR. Secondary outcomes include pain-related fear and treatment adherence.
Results:
Significant breakthroughs for treating MSK pain require mechanistically informed innovative approaches. PRVR provides exposure to progressive challenge, real-time feedback, reinforcement for movement and can include activities difficult to achieve in the real world. It has the added benefits of sustaining patient motivation and adherence while enabling clinicians to use objective benchmarks to influence progression.
Conclusions:
These findings will inform the decision of whether to proceed with a hybrid effectiveness-dissemination trial of PRVR, serving as the basis for potential large-scale implementation of PRVR. Clinical Trial: NCT04636177
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.