Effects of virtual reality rehabilitation after spinal cord injury: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Spinal cord injury often leaves people with lasting problems in walking and balance, and researchers have been exploring whether virtual reality, where patients practice movements in a simulated environment, can help with rehabilitation. This review pulled together studies testing virtual reality programmes against other forms of care or no intervention, combining results from randomised trials and non-randomised studies alike. Across a small pooled sample of 9 studies and 248 participants, measures of walking ability and balance improved in the non-randomised studies after virtual reality training. This is an encouraging signal for a rehabilitation approach that is still relatively new, but the evidence rests on a small number of studies with mixed designs, and the authors themselves note that the evidence remains limited, meaning these findings should be read as preliminary rather than settled.

If you or someone you know is recovering from a spinal cord injury, you may have heard about virtual reality being used alongside standard rehabilitation to help with walking and balance. This review looked at the existing research on that approach, combining results from a small number of studies, 9 in total, involving 248 people altogether. The researchers found that in some of these studies, people who used virtual reality training showed improvements in walking ability and balance measures.

That is a hopeful sign, but the number of studies is small, the study designs varied (some were randomised trials and some were not), and the researchers describe the overall evidence as still limited. This means virtual reality shows promise as a rehabilitation tool, but it is not yet possible to say with confidence how much it helps compared to other approaches, or for whom it works best. More research is needed before firmer conclusions can be drawn.

This is a summary of research, not medical advice. Talk to your own healthcare provider about anything affecting your care.

This review addresses whether virtual reality training offers measurable functional benefit for patients with spinal cord injury, a question relevant when considering adjuncts to conventional gait and balance rehabilitation. The authors identified 16 articles overall, pooling 9 (5 randomised controlled trials and 4 non-randomised studies, 248 participants) in the meta-analysis.

In the non-randomised studies, walking index for spinal cord injury scores, limits of stability testing, and Berg Balance Scale scores improved, but the abstract does not report a pooled effect size with confidence intervals for the randomised trials, limiting what can be concluded about between-group superiority over standard care. For clinical reasoning, this body of evidence suggests virtual reality may be a feasible adjunct worth monitoring in the literature, but the small number and mixed quality of included studies, combined with the fact that the clearer improvements come from non-randomised designs, means these findings cannot yet inform firm decisions about replacing or prioritising virtual reality over established balance and gait interventions in spinal cord injury rehabilitation.