Virtual Reality and Pain Perception During Exercises for Patients With Chronic Non-specific Low Back Pain

Hasselt University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Chronic Low Back Pain

Treatments: Other: Conventional exercise group (control group); Other: Virtual reality exercise group

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02679300

TMatheveVR&Pain

Details and patient eligibility

About

Immersion in a virtual reality environment has been shown to reduce pain during a variety of painful medical procedures, such as wound care for burn patients and dental care. Often, serious games are used to distract patients from this painful procedures. Recently, serious games have also been developed for patients with low back pain. Because patients with low back pain frequently experience pain during exercises, the investigators hypothesize that exercising with serious games can reduce the pain intensity and the time spent thinking of pain during exercises. To test this hypothesis, the investigators will conduct a randomized controlled trial where two groups will be compared: the experimental group will perform one session of exercises with serious games, while the control group will perform one session of the same exercises without the serious games.

Enrollment: 84 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 65 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Chronic non-specific low back pain, with or without referred pain to the legs
• Age 18-65
• Able to understand Dutch
• A minimum pain intensity of 3/10 on the numeric pain rating scale at the time of the test
• Being familiar with pelvic tilt exercises

Exclusion criteria

• Spinal surgery in the past
• Pregnancy
• Serious underlying pathologies (e.g. multiple sclerosis, tumors,...)
• Signs or symptoms of nerve root involvement
• Known skin-allergy for tape

Trial design

Primary purpose: Other

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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84 participants in 2 patient groups

Virtual reality group

Experimental group

Description:

During a single intervention session, participants will perform 2 sets of 2 minutes of pelvic tilt exercises using serious games. These serious games have to be controlled by pelvic tilts. Patients will perform the exercises in a standing position in front a TV-screen, on which the games will be displayed. Wireless motion sensors will be mounted to the patient's spine and pelvis to track the movements of the pelvis.

Treatment:

Other: Virtual reality exercise group

Control group

Active Comparator group

Description:

During a single session intervention, participants will perform 2 sets of 2 minutes of pelvic tilt exercises without a serious game. Patients will perform the exercises in a standing position. The number of repetitions and the tempo of the pelvic tilts will be indicated using a metronome.

Treatment:

Other: Conventional exercise group (control group)