Background: Chronic pain has long been a major health burden that has been addressed through numerous forms of pharmacological and nonpharmacological treatment. One of the tenets of modern medicine is to minimize risk while providing efficacy. Further, because of its noninvasive nature, virtual reality (VR) provides an attractive platform for potentially developing novel therapeutic modalities.
Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the feasibility of a novel VR-based digital therapy for the treatment of chronic pain.
Methods: An open-label study assessed the feasibility of using virtual embodiment in VR to treat chronic pain. In total, 24 patients with chronic pain were recruited from local pain clinics and completed 8 sessions of a novel digital therapeutic that combines virtual embodiment with graded motor imagery to deliver functional rehabilitation exercises over the course of 4 weeks. Pain intensity as measured by a visual analog scale before and after each virtual embodiment training session was used as the primary outcome measure. Additionally, a battery of patient-reported pain questionnaires (Fear-Avoidance Beliefs Questionnaire, Oswestry Low Back Pain Disability Questionnaire, Pain Catastrophizing Scale, and Patient Health Questionnaire) were administered before and after 8 sessions of virtual embodiment training as exploratory outcome measures to assess if the measures are appropriate and warrant a larger randomized controlled trial.
Results: A 2-way ANOVA on session × pre- versus postvirtual embodiment training revealed that individual virtual embodiment training sessions significantly reduced the intensity of pain as measured by the visual analog scale (P<.001). Perceived disability due to lower back pain as measured by the Oswestry Low Back Pain Disability Questionnaire significantly improved (P=.003) over the 4-week course of virtual embodiment regimen. Improvement was also observed on the helplessness subscale of the Pain Catastrophizing Scale (P=.02).
Conclusions: This study provides evidence that functional rehabilitation exercises delivered in VR are safe and may have positive effects on alleviating the symptoms of chronic pain. Additionally, the virtual embodiment intervention may improve perceived disability and helplessness of patients with chronic pain after 8 sessions. The results support the justification for a larger randomized controlled trial to assess the extent to which virtual embodiment training can exert an effect on symptoms associated with chronic pain.
Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04060875; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04060875.
Keywords: Fear-Avoidance Beliefs Questionnaire; Oswestry; Oswestry Low Back Pain Disability Questionnaire; Pain Catastrophizing Scale; Patient Health Questionnaire; centralized pain; chronic pain; dicentralized pain; digital therapeutics; pain; rehabilitation; sensorimotor; virtual reality; visual analog scale.
©Adam Saby, Anthony Alvarez, David Smolins, James Petros, Lincoln Nguyen, Michael Trujillo, Oytun Aygün. Originally published in JMIR Formative Research (https://formative.jmir.org), 16.02.2024.