Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 15, 2025
Measuring 3D In-vivo Shoulder Kinematics using Biplanar Videoradiography
Published on: March 12, 2021
Virtual embodiment for improving range of motion in patients with movement-related shoulder pain: an experimental
Mercè Álvarez de la Campa Crespo1, Tony Donegan1, Beñat Amestoy-Alonso1
1Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Rosellón, 149, 08036, Barcelona, Spain.
Background:
Recent evidence supports the use of immersive virtual reality (VR) as a means of delivering bodily illusions that may have therapeutic potential for the treatment of musculoskeletal conditions. We wanted to investigate whether a single session of an embodiment-based immersive VR training program influences pain-free range of motion in patients with shoulder pain.
Methods:
We designed a rehabilitation program based on developing ownership over a virtual body and then "exercising" the upper limb in immersive VR, while the real arm remains static. We then carried out a single-arm pre-post experiment in which 21 patients with movement-related musculoskeletal shoulder pain were exposed to the 15-min VR program and measured their active pain-free range of motion immediately before and afterwards.
Results:
We found that shoulder abduction and hand-behind-back movements, but not shoulder flexion, were significantly and clinically improved post-intervention and that the level of improvement correlated with the level of embodiment. Following this one session, at 1-week follow-up the improvements were not maintained.
Conclusions:
Virtual embodiment may be a useful therapeutic tool to help improve range of motion in patients with movement-related shoulder pain in the short term, which in turn could expedite rehabilitation and recovery in these conditions.
