Virtual Reality Intervention to Help Improve Motor Function in Patients Undergoing Rehabilitation for Cerebral Palsy, Parkinson’s Disease, or Stroke: A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials

Abstract

There are many successful interventions in medicine, especially in neurology and rehabilitation. The neurosciences represent an area of medicine with tremendous recent research innovations, one of which is virtual reality. This paper aims to discover the powerful relationship between virtual reality and rehabilitation. We assessed the effectiveness of virtual reality-based rehabilitation compared to conventional rehabilitation on motor function recovery of three patient groups: patients with a diagnosis of cerebral palsy, Parkinson's disease, or stroke. We conducted a systematic review using PubMed and included only articles that were randomized controlled trials that were published in the last five years. We used a general search in combination with a more focused Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) search. After thorough assessment and risk of bias evaluation using the Cochrane risk of bias tool, we included thirteen studies in this review. The majority of the clinical trials showed a statistically significant effect for improved motor function. More specifically, improvements in upper extremity motor function, gait, and balance in patients diagnosed with stroke were seen. Similarly, when evaluating patients with Parkinson's disease, improved gait and posture were also seen. When it came to cerebral palsy, however, there were no significant differences between the experimental group and the control. The level of improvement in motor function with a virtual reality intervention was striking, particularly since a few studies demonstrated sustained motor improvement a few months post-trial as well. Virtual reality-based rehabilitation has promising results for adult patients diagnosed with stroke or Parkinson's disease. For pediatric patients, on the other hand, a larger number of clinical trials would still need to be conducted to validate if virtual reality interventions have the capability of providing improved motor function recovery.