Virtual Reality Applications for Neurological Disease: A Review

Eirini Schiza, Maria Matsangidou, Kleanthis Neokleous, Constantinos S Pattichis, Eirini Schiza, Maria Matsangidou, Kleanthis Neokleous, Constantinos S Pattichis

Abstract

Recent advancements in Virtual Reality (VR) immersive technologies provide new tools for the development of novel and promising applications for neurological rehabilitation. The purpose of this paper is to review the emerging VR applications developed for the evaluation and treatment of patients with neurological diseases. We start by discussing the impact of novel VR tasks that encourage and facilitate the patient's empowerment and involvement in the rehabilitation process. Then, a systematic review was carried out on six well-known electronic libraries using the terms: "Virtual Reality AND Neurorehabilitation," or "Head Mounted Display AND Neurorehabilitation." This review focused on fully-immersive VR systems for which 12 relevant studies published in the time span of the last five years (from 2014 to 2019) were identified. Overall, this review paper examined the use of VR in certain neurological conditions such as dementia, stroke, spinal cord injury, Parkinson's, and multiple sclerosis. Most of the studies reveal positive results suggesting that VR is a feasible and effective tool in the treatment of neurological disorders. In addition, the finding of this systematic literature review suggested that low-cost, immersive VR technologies can prove to be effective for clinical rehabilitation in healthcare, and home-based setting with practical implications and uses. The development of VR technologies in recent years has resulted in more accessible and affordable solutions that can still provide promising results. Concluding, VR and interactive devices resulted in the development of holistic, portable, accessible, and usable systems for certain neurological disease interventions. It is expected that emerging VR technologies and tools will further facilitate the development of state of the art applications in the future, exerting a significant impact on the wellbeing of the patient.

Keywords: fully-immersive systems; head-mounted display (HMD); neurorehabilitation; review – systematic; virtual reality.

Copyright © 2019 Schiza, Matsangidou, Neokleous and Pattichis.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Selected VR HMDs from left to right, the Oculus GO, Oculus Quest, HTC VIVE wireless adapter, and PICO Neo.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Article identification and selection flow diagram.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Actual figure from Rose et al. (2019) paper, presenting the five options of VR environments given to patients with dementia.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Actual figure from Peruzzi et al. (2016) paper, presenting (a) The experimental set-up; (b) The virtual environment.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Actual figure from Saleh et al. (2017) paper, presenting (a) the experimental set-up and equipment; (b) the virtual mirror feedback.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Actual figure from Gamito et al. (2017) paper, presenting the nine virtual cognitive trainings.

References

    1. Anthes C., García-Hernández R. J., Wiedemann M., Kranzlmüller D. (2016). State of the art of virtual reality technology, in 2016 IEEE Aerospace Conference (Big Sky, MT: IEEE; ), 1–19. 10.1109/AERO.2016.7500674
    1. Badler N., Phillips C., Webber B. (1992). Simulating Humans, Computer Graphics, and Control. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
    1. Bargas-Avila J. A., Hornbæk K. (2011). Old wine in new bottles or novel challenges: a critical analysis of empirical studies of user experience, in Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Vancouver, BC: ACM; ), 2689–2698. 10.1145/1978942.1979336
    1. Borghese N. A., Pirovano M., Lanzi P. L., Wüest S., de Bruin E. D. (2013). Computational intelligence and game design for effective at-home stroke rehabilitation. Games Health 2, 81–88. 10.1089/g4h.2012.0073
    1. Chen Y. (2006). Olfactory display: development and application in virtual reality therapy, in 16th International Conference on Artificial Reality and Telexistence–Workshops (ICAT'06) (Hangzhou: IEEE; ), 580–584. 10.1109/ICAT.2006.95
    1. Deeks J. J., Higgins J., Altman D. G. (2008). Analysing data and undertaking meta-analyses. Cochr. Handbook Syst. Rev. Interv. 243–296. 10.1002/9780470712184.ch9
    1. Donati A. R., Shokur S., Morya E., Campos D. S., Moioli R. C., Gitti C. M., et al. . (2016). Long-term training with a brain-machine interface-based gait protocol induces partial neurological recovery in paraplegic patients. Sci. Rep. 6:30383. 10.1038/srep30383
    1. Gamito P., Oliveira J., Coelho C., Morais D., Lopes P., Pacheco J., et al. . (2017). Cognitive training on stroke patients via virtual reality-based serious games. Disabil. Rehabil. 39, 385–388. 10.3109/09638288.2014.934925
    1. Golubnitschaja O., Baban B., Boniolo G., Wang W., Bubnov R., Kapalla M., et al. . (2016). Medicine in the early twenty-first century: paradigm and anticipation-EPMA position paper 2016. EPMA J. 7, 23–36. 10.1186/s13167-016-0072-4
    1. Hodge J., Balaam M., Hastings S., Morrissey K. (2018). Exploring the design of tailored virtual reality experiences for people with dementia, in Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Montreal, QC: ACM; ), 514 10.1145/3173574.3174088
    1. Ichinose A., Sano Y., Osumi M., Sumitani M., Kumagaya S. I., Kuniyoshi Y. (2017). Somatosensory feedback to the cheek during virtual visual feedback therapy enhances pain alleviation for phantom arms. Neurorehabil. Neural Repair 31, 717–725. 10.1177/1545968317718268
    1. Kallmann M., Camporesi C., Han J. (2015). Vr-assisted physical rehabilitation: adapting to the needs of therapists and patients. Virt. Real. 147–168. 10.1007/978-3-319-17043-5_9
    1. Khan K. S., Ter Riet G., Glanville J., Sowden A. J., Kleijnen J. (2001). Undertaking systematic reviews of research on effectiveness: CRD's guidance for carrying out or commissioning reviews (No. 4 (2n). NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination.
    1. Kim A., Darakjian N., Finley J. M. (2017). Walking in fully immersive virtual environments: an evaluation of potential adverse effects in older adults and individuals with Parkinson's disease. J. Neuroeng. Rehabil. 14:16. 10.1186/s12984-017-0225-2
    1. Luzanin O., Plancak M. (2014). Hand gesture recognition using low-budget data glove and cluster-trained probabilistic neural network. Assembly Automat. 34, 94–105. 10.1108/AA-03-2013-020
    1. Ma M., Zheng H. (2011). Virtual reality and serious games in healthcare, in Advanced Computational Intelligence Paradigms in Healthcare 6. Virtual Reality in Psychotherapy, Rehabilitation, and Assessment (Berlin Heidelberg: Springer; ), 169–192. 10.1007/978-3-642-17824-5_9
    1. Matsangidou M., Ang C. S., Sakel M. (2017). Clinical utility of virtual reality in pain management: a comprehensive research review. Br. J. Neurosci. Nurs. 13, 133–143. 10.12968/bjnn.2017.13.3.133
    1. Matsukura H., Nihei T., Ishida H. (2011). Multi-sensorial field display: presenting spatial distribution of airflow and odor, in 2011 IEEE Virtual Reality Conference (Singapore: IEEE; ), 119–122. 10.1109/VR.2011.5759448
    1. Mendez M. F., Joshi A., Jimenez E. (2015). Virtual reality for the assessment of frontotemporal dementia, a feasibility study. Disabil. Rehabil. 10, 160–164. 10.3109/17483107.2014.889230
    1. Nakaizumi F., Noma H., Hosaka K., Yanagida Y. (2006). SpotScents: a novel method of natural scent delivery using multiple scent projectors, in IEEE Virtual Reality Conference (VR 2006) (Alexandria, VA: IEEE; ), 207–214. 10.1109/VR.2006.122
    1. Pattichis C. S., Panayides A. (2019). Specialty grand challenge article, Frontiers in Digital Health, Connected Health Specialty Section. 10.3389/fdgth.2019.00001
    1. Peruzzi A., Cereatti A., Della Croce U., Mirelman A. (2016). Effects of a virtual reality and treadmill training on gait of subjects with multiple sclerosis: a pilot study. Mult. Scler. Relat. Disord. 5, 91–96. 10.1016/j.msard.2015.11.002
    1. Pirovano M., Lanzi P. L., Mainetti R., Borghese N. A. (2013). IGER: a game engine specifically tailored to rehabilitation, in Games for Health (Wiesbaden: Springer Vieweg; ), 85–98. 10.1007/978-3-658-02897-8_7
    1. Popovic S., Horvat M., Kukolja D., Dropuljic B., Cosic K. (2009). Stress inoculation training supported by physiology-driven adaptive virtual reality stimulation. Stud. Health Technol. Inform. 144, 50–54. 10.3233/978-1-60750-017-9-50
    1. Pozeg P., Palluel E., Ronchi R., Solcà M., Al-Khodairy A. W., Jordan X., et al. (2017). Virtual reality improves embodiment and neuropathic pain caused by spinal cord injury. Neurology 18, 1101–1212. 10.1212/WNL.0000000000004585
    1. Ramachandran V. S. (2005). Plasticity and functional recovery in neurology. Clin. Med. 5, 368–373. 10.7861/clinmedicine.5-4-368
    1. Rose V., Stewart I., Jenkins K., Tabbaa L., Ang C. S., Matsangidou M. (2019). Exploring the Feasibility of Virtual Reality Distraction With Individuals Living With Dementia. Dementia: The International Journal of Social Research and Practice.
    1. Saleh S., Yarossi M., Manuweera T., Adamovich S., Tunik E. (2017). Network interactions underlying mirror feedback in stroke: a dynamic causal modeling study. NeuroImage Clin. 13, 46–54. 10.1016/j.nicl.2016.11.012
    1. Standen P. J., Threapleton K., Richardson A., Connell L., Brown D. J., Battersby S., et al. . (2017). A low cost virtual reality system for home based rehabilitation of the arm following stroke: a randomised controlled feasibility trial. Clin. Rehabil. 31, 340–350. 10.1177/0269215516640320
    1. Tabbaa L., Ang C. S., Rose V., Panote S., Stewart I., Jenkins K., et al. (2019). Bringing the outside in: VR experiences for individuals with dementia in a locked psychiatric hospital, in Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Glasgow: ACM; ), 514 10.1145/3290605.3300466
    1. Vaughan N., Dubey V. N., Wainwright T. W., Middleton R. G. (2015). Can virtual-reality simulators assess experience and skill level of orthopaedic surgeons? in 2015 Science and Information Conference (SAI) (IEEE: ), 105–108. 10.1109/SAI.2015.7237133
    1. Vaughan N., Gabrys B., Dubey V. N. (2016). An overview of self-adaptive technologies within virtual reality training. Comp. Sci. Rev. 22, 65–87. 10.1016/j.cosrev.2016.09.001
    1. Wanzel K. R., Ward M., Reznick R. K. (2002). Teaching the surgical craft: from selection to certification. Curr. Probl. Surg. 39, 583–659. 10.1067/mog.2002.123481
    1. Weber H. (2019). Virtual Reality in Healthcare - Top 5 Uses. Retrieved from:

Source: PubMed

Sponsorer og samarbeidspartnere

Medisinsk tilstand

Legemiddelintervensjoner

3
Abonnere