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Pain

Poster Gallery

924 - Efficacy of Virtual Reality on Pain Intensity in Patients with Upper Limb Complex Regional Pain Syndrome CRPS: A Narrative Review

Friday, February 23, 2024
5:00 PM – 6:30 PM EDT
Objectives: Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) is a chronic pain condition that manifests with severe pain, swelling, and decreased mobility. Despite medications and physical therapy, patients often experience limited success. Virtual Reality (VR) technology offers an interactive environment that can engage the patient in virtual activities and lead to reduction in pain-intensity from CRPS.

Design: This study included 22 patients from three pilot studies on Immersive and Non-Immersive VR. Patients with a diagnosis of upper limb CRPS in at least one limb and between ages 18-75 years old were included. Patients who experienced motion sickness with VR and studies with Heartbeat-Enhanced VR due to differing study methods were excluded. The studies involved targeted motor tasks, such as grasping virtual objects via gloves on the contralateral hand of the injury for a duration of 45 minutes to 1 hour over the course of 3-10 sessions. All three trials used baseline patient data as the control group.

Results: The study used a visual analog scale (VAS) to determine pain intensity and p-value < 0.05 was used to show statistical significance. In the first trial, the VAS was 50.453 ± 1.793 (mean ± SD) before treatment and 40.983 ± 10.756 post-treatment with a p-value = 0.024. The second trial showed the VAS decreased from 64 ± 14 to 31 ± 26 post-treatment with a p-value = 0.004. The third trial did not show statistical significance, but patient reports indicated improvement in pain intensity, which was uniform in all trials. The results indicate clinical and statistical significance in reducing pain intensity for CRPS.



Conclusions: The available data suggests that VR can be used for pain in CRPS, but a larger sample size is needed. Additional research is required to explore VR's impact on patients under 18 and those with lower limb CRPS.