Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1942/31212
Title: Virtual reality distraction induces hypoalgesia in patients with chronic low back pain: a randomized controlled trial
Authors: MATHEVE, Thomas 
BOGAERTS, Katleen 
TIMMERMANS, Annick 
Issue Date: 2020
Publisher: BMC
Source: Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation, 17 (Art N° 55)
Abstract: Background: Attentional distraction from pain has been shown to be largely ineffective for obtaining a hypoalgesic effect in patients with chronic pain when compared to a control condition. It has been hypothesized that this may be due to the non-engaging types of distraction that have been used so far. Moreover, it is suggested that the hypoalgesic effects of distraction may be attenuated by pain-related cognitions and emotions, as they may increase the attention to pain. Methods: In this randomized controlled trial, patients with chronic nonspecific low back pain in the intervention group (n = 42) performed a single exercise session with nonimmersive VR games, while those in the control group (n = 42) performed the same exercises without VR games. We investigated whether VR distraction had a hypoalgesic effect during and immediately after the exercises, and whether it reduced the time spent thinking of pain during the exercises. We further explored whether pain-related fear, pain catastrophizing and baseline pain intensity moderated the effects of VR distraction. Results: VR distraction had a hypoalgesic effect during (Cohen's d = 1.29) and immediately after (Cohen's d = 0.85) the exercises, and it also reduced the time spent thinking of pain (Cohen's d = 1.31). Preliminary exploratory analyses showed that pain-related fear, pain catastrophizing and baseline pain intensity did not moderate the effects of VR distraction. Conclusions: Large effect sizes of VR distraction induced hypoalgesia were observed. This suggests that nonimmersive VR games can be used when it is deemed important to reduce the pain during exercises in patients with chronic nonspecific low back pain. Trial registration: NCT02679300. This trial was registered on 10 February 2016.
Other: Acknowledgements We would like to thank Dr. Francesca Solmi for her advice on the statistical analyses.
Keywords: Distraction;Chronic low back pain;Virtual reality;Analgesia;Pain-related fear;Catastrophizing;Gamification
Document URI: http://hdl.handle.net/1942/31212
e-ISSN: 1743-0003
DOI: 10.1186/s12984-020-00688-0
ISI #: WOS:000530144600002
Rights: The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data
Category: A1
Type: Journal Contribution
Validations: ecoom 2021
Appears in Collections:Research publications

Files in This Item:
File Description SizeFormat 
s12984-020-00688-0.pdfPublished version1.04 MBAdobe PDFView/Open
Show full item record

SCOPUSTM   
Citations

1
checked on Sep 7, 2020

WEB OF SCIENCETM
Citations

39
checked on Mar 21, 2024

Page view(s)

60
checked on Sep 7, 2022

Download(s)

14
checked on Sep 7, 2022

Google ScholarTM

Check

Altmetric


Items in DSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.