2.1. Participants
stroke, hemorrhagic, neurodegenerative diseases, Alzheimer’s and, Parkinson’s
STROKE, NEURODEGENERATIVE DISEASES
The current study corresponds to a pilot randomized clinical trial involving 26 patients from the outpatient clinical setting “Casaverde” in Murcia (Spain).The inclusion criteria were patients receiving neurological physical therapy treatments, patients having suffered a stroke (hemorrhagic or ischemic) in the last 6 months, an 18- to 80-year age range, ability to have active mobility in at least one upper limb, ability to understand simple instructions and ability to keep a standing position. The exclusion criteria concerned patients with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, having undergone surgery on the limbs assessed or having scars which limit mobility.The corresponding informed consent, signed by all the participants or their legal caregivers, was collected prior to the onset of the study.Participants who met the inclusion criteria received a code and were subsequently included in one of the two groups. Assignment to the groups was randomized by numerical codes using the “Random Group Generator” tool of “RecursosTic.net”. The physical therapist who applied the VR treatment was not blinded to the use of both VR and neurological physical therapy treatment in each patient. The blinding itself corresponded to the assessors, since they were not aware of the assignment of any of the patients evaluated, neither at the baseline nor at the post-test measurement (after six weeks).A total of 26 subjects were initially recruited. Two subjects dropped out of the study for the following reasons: (i) considering the videogame and VR approach a waste of time and (ii) nonattendance to the clinical setting for 2 weeks. Therefore, 24 patients participated in the study and were randomly assigned to either a control group (CG, 12 subjects) or an experimental group (EG, 12 subjects). The study adhered to the Declaration of Helsinki, it was approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Murcia under the code JVP-2022-01 and it was registered in the U.S. National Library of Medicine Clinical Trials.Gov with the identifier NCT05278403.