Virtual Reality and Pain Perception During Exercises for Patients With Chronic Non-specific Low Back Pain

Hasselt University84 enrolled

Overview

Immersion in a virtual reality environment has been shown to reduce pain during a variety of painful medical procedures, such as wound care for burn patients and dental care. Often, serious games are used to distract patients from this painful procedures. Recently, serious games have also been developed for patients with low back pain. Because patients with low back pain frequently experience pain during exercises, the investigators hypothesize that exercising with serious games can reduce the pain intensity and the time spent thinking of pain during exercises. To test this hypothesis, the investigators will conduct a randomized controlled trial where two groups will be compared: the experimental group will perform one session of exercises with serious games, while the control group will perform one session of the same exercises without the serious games.

Study Type

INTERVENTIONAL

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

OTHER

Masking

NONE

Enrollment

Conditions

Chronic Low Back Pain

Interventions

Eligibility

Sex: ALLMin age: 18 YearsMax age: 65 Years

Medical Language ↔ Plain English

Inclusion Criteria: * Chronic non-specific low back pain, with or without referred pain to the legs * Age 18-65 * Able to understand Dutch * A minimum pain intensity of 3/10 on the numeric pain rating scale at the time of the test * Being familiar with pelvic tilt exercises Exclusion Criteria: * Spinal surgery in the past * Pregnancy * Serious underlying pathologies (e.g. multiple sclerosis, tumors,…) * Signs or symptoms of nerve root involvement * Known skin-allergy for tape

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

Average pain intensity during exercises using the numeric pain rating scale

Immediately after the intervention, patients will be asked to indicate the average pain they experienced during the exercises using the numeric pain rating scale (0-10)

Time frame: Day 1

Time spent thinking of the pain using a numeric rating scale

Immediately after the intervention, patients will be asked to indicate the average time they spent thinking of their pain during the exercises using a numeric rating scale ranging from 0 ("not at all") to 10 ("all the time")

Time frame: Day 1

Secondary Outcomes

Pain intensity after the exercises using a numeric rating scale

Patients will be asked to indicate their pain immediately after the exercises using the numeric pain rating scale (0-10)

Time frame: Day 1

Harmfulness of the exercises using a numeric rating scale

Immediately after the intervention, patients will be asked to indicate how harmful they thought the exercises were for their lumbar spine on a numeric rating scale ranging from 0 ("not harmful at all") to 10 ("extremely harmful").

Time frame: Day 1

Virtual Reality and Pain Perception During Exercises for Patients With Chronic Non-specific Low Back Pain

Overview

Conditions

Interventions

Eligibility

Locations (1)

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes