a novel virtual reality technique (cervigame®) compared to conventional proprioceptive training to treat neck pain: a randomized controlled trial

normal 0 false false false en-us x-none ar-sa background: despite the potential benefits of virtual reality technology in physical rehabilitation, only a few studies have evaluated the efficacy of this type of treatment in patients with neck pain. objective: the aim of this study was to compare the effects of virtual reality training (vrt) versus conventional proprioceptive training (cpt) in patients with neck pain. materials and methods: forty four participants with nonspecific chronic neck pain were randomly assigned to vrt or cpt in this assessor-blinded clinical trial. a novel videogame called cervigame® was designed for vrt. it comprises of 50 stages divided into unidirectional and two-directional stages ordered from easy to hard. cpt consisted of eye-follow, gaze stability, eye-head coordination and position and movement sense training. both groups completed 8 training sessions over 4 weeks. visual analogue scale score, neck disability index and y-balance test results were recorded at baseline, immediately after and 5 weeks post-intervention. mixed repeated measure anova was used to analyze differences between mean values for each variable at an alpha level of 0.05. results: there were significant improvements in all variables in both groups immediately after and 5 weeks after the intervention. greater improvements were observed in the visual analogue scale and neck disability index scores in vrt group, and the results for all directions in y-balance test were similar in both groups. no side effects were reported. conclusion: improvements in neck pain and disability were greater in vrt than cpt group. cervigame® is a potentially practical tool for rehabilitation in patients with neck pain.