Virtual Reality in Medical Rehabilitation

Patients with motor and/or cognitive disorders, a history of stroke or head/spinal cord injury, chronic pain, neurodegenerative diseases, or neurological complications of severe COVD-19 may not benefit from pharmacotherapy or traditional rehabilitation. Virtual reality is an innovative therapeutic approach that restores lost functions. This interactive technology uses computer modeling to create a virtual world. Virtual reality provides multisensory stimulation, activates restorative neural mechanisms, and produces an analgesic effect. In recent years, virtual reality has become more prevalent in neurology. It improves motor and cognitive outcomes in patients with various neurological and neuropsychological dysfunctions. These improvements are the result of neuroplasticity and neurogenesis in brain lesions. Virtual reality–based rehabilitation can be used alone or in combination with other treatment options. The most effective treatment combines exercise therapy, physical therapy, psychological counseling, standard cognitive training, and training with immersive virtual reality technology. This technology creates a sense of presence in a three-dimensional digital environment. With head-mounted displays and body monitoring sensors, users can interact naturally with virtual objects. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses have shown that depending on the initial condition, most patients demonstrate improvement in voluntary range of motion, balance, cognitive function, mood, quality of life, anxiety, and pain. Therefore, virtual reality–based therapy is a promising rehabilitation option for patients with neurological symptoms. Virtual reality–based neurological rehabilitation allows for the personalized selection of exercise complexity and intensity, thereby increasing patient compliance through gamification. However, further research is needed to standardize virtual reality–based modalities, clarify inclusion and exclusion criteria for clinical trials, optimize protocols, and evaluate long-term effects.