Playing your pain away: designing a virtual reality physical therapy for children with upper limb motor impairment

Children with upper limb motor impairment often undergo repetitive therapeutic physiotherapy sessions to minimize functional disabilities of the affected area. Even though therapeutic processes can improve functional outcomes and minimize persistent disabilities, patients often neglect to participate fully in physical therapies due to the associated procedural pain. Over recent decades, there has been a growing interest in designing non-pharmacological interventions which aim to minimize pain during physical therapies and improve functional outcomes. Via two interrelated studies, we explored the use of virtual reality (VR) as a tool to provide therapeutic physiotherapy for child patients in an out-patient hospital department. We found that VR is an effective solution for children with upper limb motor impairment undergoing painful therapeutic process within a hospital environment. VR can improve functional disabilities, alleviate perceived pain, reduce the perceived difficulty of rehabilitation exercises, increase exercise duration and produce positive emotions towards the therapy.