Additional Benefits of Virtual Reality Therapy for Individuals With Neck Pain

July 13, 2026 updated by: Nazife Kapan, Kirsehir Ahi Evran Universitesi

Does Adding Virtual Reality Therapy to Conventional Physical Therapy Improve Clinical Outcomes in Individuals With Chronic Neck Pain?

This study aimed to investigate the effect of adding virtual reality therapy to conventional treatment in patients with chronic neck pain on pain, neck disability index, kinesiophobia, insomnia severity questionnaire, hospital anxiety depression scale, cervical range of motion and pressure pain threshold.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Neck pain is a disease that affects individuals and society worldwide. Between 50% and 85% of the general population experiences neck pain at some point in their lives, and every person who experiences neck pain is likely to experience pain again after 1-5 years. Neck pain is considered chronic if it lasts more than 3 months. Passive and active physical therapy approaches play a very important role in the treatment of neck pain. With the rapid development of technology, new developments such as virtual reality have begun to be used in the treatment of chronic neck pain.

Virtual reality (VR) is a term describing innovative, real-time, computer-based technologies that play an increasing role for many patient groups in the field of physical medicine and rehabilitation. Virtual reality has been shown to be effective in reducing pain and discomfort in patients with different types of chronic pain. Motivation and interaction are the main practical benefits of virtual reality training, especially in video game-based therapy approaches, unlike traditional rehabilitation. Patients play the therapeutic game over and over again to achieve a better score without getting bored. Feedback, an important component of motor learning, is a prominent feature in virtual environments.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

62

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • Turkey (Türkiye)
    • Kırşehir
      • Kırşehir, Kırşehir, Turkey (Türkiye)
        • Kırsehir Ahi Evran University

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Patients aged 18-65 who signed the informed consent form
  • Those with existing neck pain
  • Those whose neck pain continues for at least 12 weeks

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Previous cervical surgery
  • Having received FTR from the cervical region in the last 6 months
  • Having had a spinal fracture
  • History of malignancy
  • Those with pacemakers
  • Those with rheumatological, vestibular and neurological diseases
  • Pregnant women

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Treatment
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Single

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: group I
conventional treatment As conventional treatment, patients will receive 20 minutes of hotpack and 20 minutes of TENS, 5 sessions a week for a total of 15 sessions for 3 weeks. Additionally, patients will be given cervical isometric exercises as a home exercise program.
Other: rehabilitation program
conventional treatment (hotpack and TENS and exercise)
Experimental: group II

conventional treatment and virtual reality As conventional treatment, patients will receive 20 minutes of hotpack and 20 minutes of TENS, 5 sessions a week for a total of 15 sessions for 3 weeks. Additionally, patients will be given cervical isometric exercises as a home exercise program.

In addition to conventional treatment, virtual reality treatment will allow patients to play games in which they can perform neck movements in all directions for 30 minutes a day, 5 sessions a week for 3 weeks..
Other: rehabilitation program
conventional treatment (hotpack and TENS and exercise)
Other: virtual reality
virtual reality treatment

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Visual Anolog Scale
Time Frame: Before treatment and three weeks
It is a pain rating scale with numbers 0 and 10. Here 0 means 'no pain' and 10 means 'unbearable pain'. The participant will rate the pain according to the scale. Patients' night, rest and activity pain will be evaluated separately.
Before treatment and three weeks
Neck Disability Index
Time Frame: Before treatment and three weeks
It is the most widely used scale for cervical dysfunction and pain. It is also a unidimensional measurement used to determine the patient's perceived level of disability due to neck pain. It is a personal questionnaire consisting of 10 items regarding daily living activities. Each section is scored from 0 (no disability) to 5 (complete disability). The total score ranges from 0 (no injury) to 50 (total injury).
Before treatment and three weeks
Range of Motion
Time Frame: Before treatment and three weeks
Cervical range of motion, flexion, extension, right-left lateral flexion and right-left rotations will be measured and recorded using a goniometer. Normal joint ranges of motion; Flexion was determined as 50 degrees, extension as 70 degrees, lateral flexion as 45 degrees and rotation as 80 degrees.
Before treatment and three weeks

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Tampa Kinesiophobia Scale
Time Frame: Before treatment and three weeks
It consists of 17 questions designed to measure fear of movement. A 4-point Likert scoring (1: strongly disagree, 2: disagree, 3: agree, 4: completely agree) is used. Total score varies between 17-68. It is concluded that the higher the person scores on the scale, the higher the fear of movement.
Before treatment and three weeks
Insomnia Severity Index
Time Frame: Before treatment and three weeks
This scale, developed to determine the degree of insomnia symptoms, can be used in normal population screening and clinical evaluation of insomnia. It is a five-point Likert type scale consisting of seven items. 0-7 points indicate insignificant insomnia, 8-14 indicates clinically subthreshold insomnia, 15-21 indicates moderate insomnia, and 22-28 indicates severe insomnia.
Before treatment and three weeks
Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale
Time Frame: Before treatment and three weeks
This scale was used to determine anxiety and depression symptomatology. The scale consists of a total of 14 items, 7 items assessing depression and 7 items assessing anxiety. By summing the subscale scores, 0-21 points can be obtained from each of the depression and anxiety scales. 0-7 points; no depression or anxiety disorder, 8-10 points; mild depression or anxiety disorder, 11-14 points; moderate, 15-21 points; indicates severe disorder.
Before treatment and three weeks
Pressure Pain Threshold
Time Frame: Before treatment and three weeks
A pressure algometer (Baseline dolorimeter-66 pound sensitivity- with circular probe) will be used to evaluate the pressure pain threshold. Pain pressure thresholds will be measured from both the right and left upper trapezius and the right-left C1/2 and C5/6 articular pilar level. Before measurements are taken at these points, the pressure pain threshold measurement will be displayed on the patient's hand in order to familiarize the patient with the procedure. Participants will be told to say 'stop' when the feeling changes from pressure to pain. Three measurements will be made at each point with a 1 cm diameter probe and a maximum pressure of up to 60 N will be applied at a speed of approximately 3 N/s. A 30-second rest period will be left between each measurement and the average of the measurements will be recorded.
Before treatment and three weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Kirsehir Ahi Evran Universitesi

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

March 15, 2024

Primary Completion (Actual)

September 16, 2024

Study Completion (Actual)

September 16, 2024

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

January 8, 2024

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

January 23, 2024

First Posted (Actual)

February 1, 2024

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

July 14, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

July 13, 2026

Last Verified

September 1, 2024

More Information

Terms related to this study

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • AEÜ-NK-SG

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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