The effect of simulating functional tasks during an immersive virtual reality environment on pain and fear of movement in people with chronic non-specific low back pain.

The effect of simulating functional tasks during an immersive virtual reality environment on pain and fear of movement in people with chronic non-specific low back pain. Virtual reality (VR) with cognitive behavioural therapy and pain education on reported pain and fear avoidance beliefs, trunk movement, physical activity levels among individuals with chronic low back pain. The participants will be taken through a 30 minute standardised pain education session. The session has been designed specifically for this study, and a hand out will be provided which is not publicly available. There is no prescription of exercise or activity from this session. The second session, the participants will have three rounds of VR gameplay of five minutes duration using the Oculus Quest 2 head mounted display. The emphasis of the VR-CBT will be graduated exposure to forward bending during self-paced, age-appropriate game scenarios (i.e.: throwing basketball through hoop, air hockey, 10-pin bowling). During VR-CBT intervention, video footage and 3D motion capture will be simultaneously collected. Following gameplay, the cognitive behavioural therapy will be incorporated by video footage replayed to the participant in which positive movement strategies will be highlighted, while 3D motion capture will be used to express trunk movement as a proportion of their maximum obtained during standardized movement tasks. The first session will be 1.5 hours, the second session will be 1.5 hours, the third will be 45 minutes. These three sessions will be over a 2 week period. Attendance will be monitored for these three sessions via a checklist. The intervention provider is a physiotherapist with experience in pain education and chronic low back pain with 5 years experience. This intervention will be the same for all participants. The intervention will be delivered face to face and will be performed individually. The intervention will occur at the Surgical, Treatment and Rehabilitation Services building in Herston, QLD. There is a dedicated research room in this facility.