The Effectiveness Of Virtual Reality Along With Task Specific Training On Quality Of Life Of C6-C7 Level- Incomplete Spinal Cord Injury Patients

Abstract

Background- Spinal cord injury is a devastating condition. In recent years, traumatic spinal cord injury has become one of the major disabling conditions in young males. These chronic complications negatively impact patients’ functional independence and thus affect the quality of life.

Methods-Thirty-seven spinal cord injury patientsC6-C7 with American Spinal Cord Injury Association (C, D) who full-filled the inclusion criteria were recruited,  out of which 7 discontinued the therapy program, 15 spinal cord injury  patients in Group I (Virtual Reality with Task Specific Training) and 15 spinal cord injury patients in the Group II (only task specific) completed the study.Virtual Reality training was given as an intervention using NIRVANA which is a semi-immersive Virtual Reality training.

Results-Group I, which received only Task Specific Training, revealed a statistically significantly positive change in Quality of life (Z = -2.671, p = 0.008) with a medium effect size of (r = 0.48). For Group II, which received Virtual Reality along with Task Specific Training,revealed a statistically significantly positive change in Quality of life (Z = -3.415 p = 0.001) with a large effect size of (r = 0.62)

Conclusion-Both the groups showed significant positive improvements in quality of life inspinal cord injury patients, indicating that both task-oriented training and the use of Virtual Reality as treatment modalities have a direct impact on QoL. However, more significant improvement was seen in Group 2 where Virtual Reality was combined with Task Specific Training.