Virtual reality to augment robot-assisted gait training in non-ambulatory patients with a subacute stroke: a pilot randomized controlled trial

Effects of Immersive and Non-Immersive Virtual Reality on the Static and Dynamic Balance of Stroke Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…Regarding the number of sessions of virtual reality in the experimental group, we observed an average of 18.2 sessions (18.2 ± 7.146); the studies by Cho et al [17] and Yom et al [39] applied the most sessions, with a total of 30, and the trials from Bergman et al [40], Lee et al [34], Park et al [35], and Kim et al [38] applied the fewest, with 12 sessions each. On the other hand, in the control group, the average number of conventional physiotherapy sessions was 19, the lowest number of sessions occurred in the study by Kim et al [38] with 8, and the highest number of sessions were scheduled in the studies by Cho et al [17] and Yom et al [39] with 30 sessions each.…”

“…The mean age of the participants was 59.73 years in the experimental groups and 60.35 in the control groups. The size of the sample varied from one study to another, showing a mean of 32; the largest was 73 participants [37], and the smallest was 20 [24,35,39,40] (Table 2), but we noted that most of them had small sample sizes.…”

“…The least well-accomplished items in all the studies included were item 5 (the masking of participants) and item 6 (the masking of therapists). However, three items were not accomplished for at least two studies; Lee et al [34] and Yom et al [39] did not follow item 2, Bergmann et al [40] and Park et al [35] did not include item 7, and item 8 (the results for all the participants who received treatment or were assigned to the control group or, failing that, results that were analyzed by "intention to treat") was not considered in six of the studies [17,33,35,[38][39][40].…”

“…The measurement instruments used in this review are those described in the clinical practice guideline by Veerbeek et al [31]. These are included within the recommendations for outcome measures of the Academy of Neurologic Physical Therapy (ANPT) [32] therefore, we used the Berg scale (BBS) [17,24,[33][34][35][36], and a functional reach test [17,33], as tools for measuring static equilibrium, and timed up and go test (TUG) [17,[33][34][35][37][38][39] and the 10 m walking test [24,35,40] to assess dynamic balance.…”

“…To evaluate dynamic balance, we relied on two studies that used immersive virtual reality using the timed up and go test [17,38]; in addition, we consulted six studies that applied non-immersive virtual reality, three of which used the 10 m test [24,35,40], while Lee et al [34] Karasu et al [33], and Yom et al [39] used the timed up and go test.…”