Effects of Immersive Virtual Reality-Based Movement Therapy on Upper ExtremityFunctions and Cognitive Functions in Stroke Patients

Background: This controlled experimental study aimed to investigatethe effect of immersive virtual reality-based movement therapy (IVRMT) on upper extremity functions (UEF), activities of daily living(ADL), and cognitive functions (CF) in chronic stroke patients.Methods: Patients who met the inclusion criteria, were randomlyassigned to the study (IVR) or control groups. Both of the groupsreceived 60 minutes/day of conventional rehabilitation program andoccupational therapy and the IVR group received 30 minutes/day ofadditional IVR-MT for six weeks. UEF was evaluated by the JebsenTaylor Hand Function Test (JTHFT), and the Box and Block Test(BBT), ADL was evaluated by the Barthel Index (BI), and 36-ItemShort Form Survey (SF-36), and CF was evaluated with the MiniMental Test (MMT).Results: There were no differences between the IVR (n=15), andcontrol (n=10) groups for demographic and clinical characteristics orbaseline results of JTHFT, BBT, BI, SF-36, and MMT. At six weekspost-treatment there were significant improvements in the IVR group inscores for moving large light cans (Pvalue=0.001) and moving largeheavy cans (Pvalue=0.003) in the JTHFT, in BBT scores(Pvalue=0.004), in MMT (Pvalue=0.033) and for physical functioning(Pvalue=0.008) in the SF-36. In addition, the change in score in theIVR group for moving large light cans (Pvalue=0.008) and movinglarge heavy cans (Pvalue=0.002) at week 6 was significantly largerthan in the control group.Conclusions: These results suggest that additional IVR-MT, incombination with conventional physiotherapy and occupationaltherapy might improve outcomes in UEF and CF in chronic strokepatients.