NCT06999473

Assessment and Treat Neglect Patients With a VR Application

Assess and Treat Visuospatial Neglect in Central Neurological Conditions Via an Innovative Virtual Reality Software

• Status: Not Yet Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 30 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Universiteit Antwerpen · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The objective of this project is to investigate the effectiveness of neglect training in our self-developed VR application "SpatialSense". The investigators aim to reach the following goals: i. Compare conventional neglect therapy for neglect training with SpatialSense to evaluate the impacts on neglect recovery to see whether the VR therapy improves the clinical outcomes, such as balance recovery, perception of verticality, quality of life, independence in daily activities, and cognitive impairment, after rehabilitation training. ii. Analyze and compare the search strategies employed by stroke patients with VSN and those without VSN during the execution of the search task with SpatialSense to summarize typical visual scanning strategies for facilitation, rehabilitation training, and improving the transfer effect in daily activities. The experimental group will receive both conventional OT and PT treatment, but 3 days a week, half an hour of conventional treatment will be replaced by treatment with SpatialSense software. The control group will receive their regular dose-matched conventional OT and PT sessions without interference. The experimental group will receive SpatialSense training 3 times a week for a consecutive 4 weeks (12 sessions in total of 30 minutes).

Detailed description

Technical information: Our VR application is made with the game engine Unity (version 2020.2.5f1). We built this for the HMD Pico 4 Enterprise, which has six degrees of freedom, a 4K RGB display, a 101-degree field of view, and built-in eye-tracking hardware and software. The virtual environment is a 3-dimensional immersive environment in which the participant will be placed in three different virtual scenes: a picnic table, a kitchen, and a playground. This allows for the placement of stimuli in three different regions: near peripersonal (reaching) space, far peripersonal space, and extrapersonal (far) space. The goal of the game is to search for items that appear in front of the view, as accurately and quickly as possible.

Conditions

• Neglect, Hemispatial
• Stroke
• Virtual Reality Therapy

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DEVICE	Virtual reality training	This training is built for the HMD Pico 4 Enterprise, which has six degrees of freedom, a 4k RGB display, a 101-degree field of view, and built-in eye-tracking hardware and software. The virtual environment is a 3-dimensional immersive environment in which the participant will be placed in three different virtual scenes: a picnic table, a kitchen, and a playground. This allows for the placement of stimuli in three different regions: near peripersonal (reaching) space, far peripersonal space, and extrapersonal (far) space. The goal of the game is to search for items that appear in front of the view, as accurately and quickly as possible.
BEHAVIORAL	physiotherapy and occupational therapy	The conventional treatment consists of a problem-solving approach mainly based on the neurodevelopmental treatment approach. For VSN, the conventional treatment mainly consists of a mix of prism adaptation, visual scanning, and compensatory strategies based on the individual needs of the patient.
DEVICE	Assessment	During assessments with SpatialSense, participants will sit in a wheelchair or on a straight-back chair. The trunk will be restricted to the chair. Finally, the data will be exported from SpatialSense and analyzed by investigators to define different search strategies while performing scanning tasks.

Timeline

• Start date: 2025-06-01
• Primary completion: 2027-05-01
• Completion: 2027-07-01
• First posted: 2025-05-31
• Last updated: 2025-05-31

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Belgium