Virtual and Augmented Reality Training on Digital Mirror D-Wall. Case Study: Long Covid-19 Rehabilitation Protocol

Research Objectives

The purpose is to verify whether patients with Long Covid-19 symptoms can recover Functional Capabilities and Endurance reaching the normotype subjects’ level.

Design

The study is a before-after trial comparing the affected sample with baseline normotype data.

Setting

The study was carried out at the private clinic "Move Different" near Aosta Italy. The clinic has an agreement with public health for a project for patients with Long Covid-19 symptoms.

Participants

About 60 subjects (mean age 62+-3) healed from Covid-19 Virus with more than one day of hospitalization, older than 60 years old were included. They were divided into two clusters: Low Performance Patients (LPP) and Medium Performance Patients (MPP), decided by the Medical Equipe.

Interventions

The program consisted of 10 sessions of 1h, divided into 2/3 treatments per week; based on the use of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality through a Digital Mirror.

Main Outcome Measures

Tests were performed before and after the intervention. Increase in meters covered in the 6 Minutes Walking Test (MPP increases 56+- 65 meters, LPP increases 99+-74 meters).

Results

Wilcoxon test was performed between pre and post 6MWT for both of populations (pvalue < 0.005, pvalue < 0.005). After the treatment, results are close to normative data of Perera et al, 2006, Geriatrics.

Conclusions

The improvement of both groups is statistically significantly difference; data support that especially the medium-functional group achieves the similar level of normotype subjects. A future randomized control trial aimed at testing whether improvement of this method over a traditional one is suggested.

Author(s) Disclosures

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research authorship and/or publication of this poster.