Disclosures: Derrick L. Miller, BS: No financial relationships or conflicts of interest

Objective: To characterize perceptions and task load of a suite of virtual reality (VR) therapies designed to increase lumbar flexion (i.e., the MoVR suite).

Design: Cross-sectional Setting : Motor Control Laboratory, via custom designed VR software suite. Participants : Healthy adults (11 male, 8 female; Mean age: 25.11+/- 3.45) without a history of back pain.

Interventions: Four VR whole-body reaching therapies (Reachality, Matchality, Fishality, Dodgeality) based on participant anthropometrics to elicit specific amounts of lumbar flexion across differing static and dynamic tasks. In Reachality, participants perform a standardized functional reach task. In Matchality, participants must remember and repeat a sequence of lighted cubes in the correct order. Fishality and Dodgeality require participants to react and intercept objects (e.g., Fish jumping from the lake, or blocking dodgeballs) at predetermined heights.

Main Outcome Measures: NASA TLX; Game Satisfaction questionnaire, 10 questions with a 5 point Likert scale ranging from Strongly Agree (1) to Strongly Disagree (5).

Results: Preliminary analysis (n=19) reveals greater ‘enjoyment’, ‘engagement’ and ‘likelihood to use if available at home’ in Matchality (p < 0.009), Fishality (p < 0.002) and Dodgeality (p < 0.001) compared to Reachality. Matchality was associated with perceptions of less success (p=0.028) and greater irritability (p=0.039) when compared to Dodgeality. Conclusions: Participants preferred game environments that provided more physically dynamic or cognitive challenges (Matchality, Dodgeality, and Fishality compared to Reachality). Surprisingly, Matchality, which required the greatest cognitive component and required holding of a flexed posture was linked to greater difficulty compared to the more dynamic gameplay in Fishality and Dodgeality. As VR grows as a modality for rehabilitation, these results will be used to develop better therapies that are more engaging, immersive and tailored to the patient's experience. Future studies will compare movement behavior across the suite in a low back pain population.

Level of Evidence: Level IV

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PM&R Meeting Abstracts - https://pmrjabstracts.org/abstract/developing-virtual-reality-vr-rehabilitation-tools-exploring-perceptions-to-a-novel-suite-of-vr-based-therapies-aimed-at-altering-movement-behavior/