Abstract
Chronic neck pain is a common cause of cervical pain, stiffness, and mobility issues worldwide. While there is no definitive cure for neck pain, physical therapy is crucial in its management. Healthcare professionals recommend specific home-based neck exercises to alleviate pain and stiffness. However, maintaining these exercise routines over an extended period and ensuring proper execution can be challenging, leading to poor patient compliance. Therefore, there is a need for a low-cost, home-based portable measurement system that encourages sufferers to monitor changes in neck mobility while promoting mindfulness and motivation. Virtual Reality (VR) systems, such as the Oculus Quest 2, have been effectively used in pain management and have demonstrated sufficient accuracy in capturing cervical range of motion. In the “HeadTurner VR” study, 35 participants from a student population were tested with a novel immersive game to measure and record various neck rotations in three-dimensional planes in real time. The data was compared with similar studies using standard devices for measuring cervical mobility. Findings revealed similarities in specific measurements with other studies and indicated the necessity for further investigation into the influence of gender, age, and weight on neck range of motion. Although further analyses are needed, initial results suggest that the VR application is sufficiently accurate and reliable in measuring neck movement and can be further developed as a low-cost, objective measurement device for neck rehabilitation.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | IEEE ISSC |
Editors | Lucio Tommaso De Paolis, Pasquale Arpaia, Marco Sacco |
Publisher | Springer Cham |
Pages | 134-142 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Volume | 15028 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 978-3-031-71704-8 |
ISBN (Print) | 9783031717031 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published (in print/issue) - 18 Sept 2024 |
Publication series
Name | Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics) |
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Volume | 15028 LNCS |
ISSN (Print) | 0302-9743 |
ISSN (Electronic) | 1611-3349 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024.
Keywords
- ankylosing spondylitis
- arthritis
- artificial intelligence (AI)
- axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA)
- chronic neck pain (CNC)
- exergame
- game design
- inertial measurement unit (IMU)
- serious games
- virtual reality (VR)