Benefits of Virtual Reality Balance Training for Patients With Parkinson Disease: Systematic Review, Meta-analysis, and Meta-Regression of a Randomized Controlled Trial

• Published in: JMIR serious games 2022-03, Vol.10 (1), p.e30882-e30882
• Main Authors: Wu, Jinlong, Zhang, Hui, Chen, Ziyan, Fu, Ruijia, Yang, Hao, Zeng, Hongfa, Ren, Zhanbing
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Review
• ISSN: 2291-9279; 2291-9279
• DOI: 10.2196/30882

Virtual reality (VR) balance training is increasingly being pursued in biomedical research, specifically with respect to investigating balance ability with VR. However, existing systematic reviews have found inconsistent conclusions about the efficacy of VR in improving balance in Parkinson disease (PD) patients. The goal of the research was to evaluate the impact of VR balance training on the balance ability of patients with PD. All major databases, including Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, and Wanfang, were searched to identify all relevant studies published in English or Chinese since September 15, 2010. Two researchers independently conducted document retrieval, study selection, data extraction, and methodological quality evaluation. A total of 16 randomized controlled trials were analyzed (n=583 patients with PD), with the methodological quality evaluation score ranging from 5 to 8 points. A random effects model was selected to combine effect sizes. Meta-analysis showed that the balance ability of PD was significantly improved after VR training compared with the control group (standardized mean difference [SMD] 2.127, 95% CI 1.202 to 3.052, P