4. Discussion
neuromatrix, pelvic pain, pain
ENDOMETRIOSIS
This study is the first randomized controlled study to compare the impacts of a single bout of telehealth- and VR-delivered exercise session on pelvic pain in women with mild-to-moderate endometriosis. The main finding is that although there was an increase in pelvic pain scores from baseline across all three groups, the increase in pain magnitude (telehealth: +10 ± 12 mm, VR: +9 ± 24 mm) was not as large as that in the control group (control: +16 ± 12 mm). This result suggests that both digital health interventions may have the capacity to elicit a hypoalgesic effect on pelvic pain experienced by women diagnosed with endometriosis.Our findings are consistent with a study which demonstrated that a 10–20 min VR session was able to alleviate pain in participants with chronic global pain [A plausible mechanism to explain the pain-relieving effect of VR- and telehealth-delivered exercise interventions may be their capacity to alter how pain-associated neurotransmission is processed in the central nervous system (CNS). The gate control and neuromatrix theories suggest that pain can be influenced by attention, emotion, and prior experiences related to pain [The results of our study could also be explained by the interactions between the cardiovascular regulatory system and the pain system [However, it should be noted that there is one aspect of the VR study by Jin et al. [