Application and mechanism of virtual reality technology in post-stroke rehabilitation of the hemiplegic upper limb / 中国组织工程研究

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Virtual reality is an important assistive technology of upper limb motor function rehabilitation in recent years. The possible mechanism has become one of the research hotspots in the field of neural rehabilitation. OBJECTIVE: To summarize the application status and possible mechanism of virtual reality technology in post-stroke functional rehabilitation of the hemiplegic upper limb, as well as its future development. METHODS: We searched the articles in PubMed, Web of Science, WanFang and CNKI with the keywords of “stroke; brain hemorrhage; brain infarction; virtual reality; upper limb; hand; motor function; rehabilitation; neurorehabilitation; mechanism” in English and Chinese, respectively. The search time was from June 2000 to December 2019. Eventually, 102 articles that met the criteria were recruited. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Combined with conventional rehabilitation, virtual reality can significantly improve the motor function of the hemiplegic upper limb in post-stroke patients, and do better in improving patients’ compliance and saving labor cost than conventional training. However, there is insufficient clinical evidence to prove that virtual reality training alone is superior to conventional rehabilitation. The training effect may be affected by different factors in different stages of post-stroke patients. Virtual reality training may activate sensorimotor center by visual feedback and achieve motor recovery through improving cortical reorganization. Due to the imperfection of current theoretical models, further researches are expected.