Restoring movement representation and alleviating phantom limb pain through short‐term neurorehabilitation with a virtual reality system

Abstract

There was no objective evidence that restoring movement representation by neurorehabilitation with virtual reality alleviated phantom limb pain. This study revealed quantitatively that restoring movement representation with virtual reality rehabilitation using a bimanual coordination task correlated with alleviation of phantom limb pain.

Motor learning and transfer between real and virtual environments in young people with autism spectrum disorder: A prospective randomized cross over controlled trial

“…It is also possible that VR can help to teach more complex integrated cognitive/motor tasks such as those involving planning and executive functioning including bus‐taking, shopping and driving activities [Simoes, Bernardes, Barros, & Castelo‐Branco, ], and can also train social cognition as an essential component of these interactions [Yang et al, ]. Although, there are still some questions about whether the engagement in VR tasks is due to its novelty and motor interaction, studies highlight that motivation and attention are important features of VR systems (besides ease of use) which may contribute to increased interest and involvement in the tasks [Avola, Cinque, Foresti, & Marini, ; Osumi et al, ]. Moreover, VR may provide a step change to improve acquisition of a number of community skills and may enable learning in a safe controlled environment, improving adherence and enjoyment [Mineo, Ziegler, Gill, & Salkin, ] and allowing the possibility of enhanced transfer to real‐life behaviors [Cox et al, ; Patrick et al, ; Ross et al, ; Saiano et al, ; Saiano, Garbarino, Lumachi, Solari, & Sanguineti, ].…”

Managing limb pain using virtual reality: a systematic review of clinical and experimental studies

“…Two were randomized controlled trials, eight were single group pre-test post-test without a control group comparison, seven were case series, and one was a case study. Eleven studies evaluated participants with upper phantom limb pain, [7,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24] one study evaluated participants with upper and lower phantom limb pain. [25] One study evaluated upper limb complex regional pain syndrome, [26] one study evaluated lower limb complex regional pain syndrome, [27] and two studies evaluated upper and lower limb complex regional pain syndrome.…”

“…Movement of virtual limbs was controlled by movements of the affected (painful) limb in five studies [15,19,25,27,31] or movements of the non-affected (non-painful) limb in nine studies. [7,16,17,18,21,22,23,24,30] In one study a virtual arm was controlled by movement of the participant's affected (painful) arm but the virtual hand and fingers were controlled by the participant's non-affected (non-painful) hand and fingers. [26] In three studies participants did not control movement of virtual limbs but instead were required to imitate movements of a virtual limb, [20] and mentally imitate the movements of a virtual body.…”

“…[26] In three studies participants did not control movement of virtual limbs but instead were required to imitate movements of a virtual limb, [20] and mentally imitate the movements of a virtual body. [28,29] Treatment frequency and duration of interventions varied between studies from one 10minute session for phantom limb pain and complex regional pain syndrome [7,28,29], to two one-hour sessions per week for eight weeks for phantom limb pain. [16] [Insert The two randomized controlled trials found no significant difference pre-post intervention nor between intervention and control groups for pain intensity ( Table 1).…”

“…Virtual representation of body parts has also been used to provide a corrective reembodiment of painful dysmorphic body parts. For example, Osumi et al [7] used motiontracking technology with individuals with phantom limb pain so that movements of their intact arm generated movements of a contralateral virtual arm that appeared over their phantom limb. Participants were instructed to touch virtual objects with the virtual representation of their limb and this was found to reduce pain and improve feelings of agency.…”