NCT06549166

Virtual Reality in Chronic Neck Pain

Effectiveness of Exercise Training and Virtual Reality on Disability, Pain and Joint Position Sense in Individuals With Chronic Neck Pain: A Randomized Controlled Study

• Status: Not Yet Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 46 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Koç University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 45 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The purpose of this study is to compare the effects of virtual reality, which encourages active neck movements, in individuals with chronic neck pain, with the control group receiving only neck exercises. Participants will be randomly divided into two groups; Half of them will be given only a neck exercises program, and the other half will be given neck exercises and virtual reality.

Detailed description

Individuals with chronic neck pain tend to have low levels of endurance in deep neck flexor muscles. Conservative treatments for neck pain, including posture education, strengthening, range of motion, motor control, flexibility, and proprioceptive training, are recommended in clinical guidelines. Virtual reality has been shown to be beneficial in the treatment of various issues related to pain in previous systematic reviews. Distracting attention is one of the mechanisms explaining the impact of virtual reality on pain. It is believed that virtual reality reduces pain perception by influencing pain pathways.

Conditions

• Neck Pain

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Experimental: VR and exercise	Participants will perform a 20-minute exercise program consisting of neck joint mobility exercises, neck and scapulothoracic muscle strengthening exercises, and stretching exercises. Then, for the next 20 minutes, they will engage in active neck movements using the Oculus Quest2 headset with the Ocean Rift game.
OTHER	Sham Comparator: exercise	The control group will perform a 40-minute same neck exercises.

Timeline

• Start date: 2024-09-01
• Primary completion: 2025-07-01
• Completion: 2025-12-01
• First posted: 2024-08-12
• Last updated: 2024-08-15

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Turkey (Türkiye)