Deans' stroke musings: The effectiveness of immersive virtual reality in physical recovery of stroke patients: A systematic review

Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Thursday, September 29, 2022

The effectiveness of immersive virtual reality in physical recovery of stroke patients: A systematic review

What are the chances your hospital will bring this in?

The effectiveness of immersive virtual reality in physical recovery of stroke patients: A systematic review

Irini Patsaki^1*,

Nefeli Dimitriadi²,

Akylina Despoti¹,

Dimitra Tzoumi¹,

Nikolaos Leventakis¹,

Georgia Roussou¹,

Argyro Papathanasiou³,

Serafeim Nanas¹ and

Eleftherios Karatzanos¹

¹Clinical Ergospirometry, Exercise and Rehabilitation Laboratory, 1st Critical Care Department, Evangelismos Hospital, School of Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
²Department of Film Studies, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
³Virtual Reality Applications (ViRA), Athens, Greece

Background: Over the past few years, technological innovations have been increasingly employed to augment the rehabilitation of stroke patients. Virtual reality (VR) has gained attention through its ability to deliver a customized training session and to increase patients’ engagement. Virtual reality rehabilitation programs allow the patient to perform a therapeutic program tailored to his/her needs while interacting with a computer-simulated environment.

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of a fully immersive rehabilitation program using a commercially available head-mounted display in stroke patients.

Methods: A systematic search was conducted in three databases, namely, PubMed, Google Scholar, and PEDro. Four hundred thirty-two references were identified. The keywords used for the literature search were in English, which are given as follows: immersive, virtual reality, neurorehabilitation, stroke, and head-mounted display. Additionally, applicable articles were identified through screening reference lists of relevant articles.

Results: Only 12 studies used head-mounted display for immersing the patient into the virtual world. Apart from the feasibility of this new technology, a range of benefits were identified, especially in terms of functional ability as measured by FIM or Barthel, the Action Research arm Test, Box and Block Test, Fugl-Meyer assessment of physical performance, strength, and balance outcomes.

Conclusion: The results from this review support the potential beneficial effect of fully immersive virtual reality in the rehabilitation of stroke patients, maximizing recovery through increased motivation and adherence.