Interventions
breathlessness, fatigue
ADVERSE EFFECTS
Both interventions (EI and CI) lasted 8 weeks (3 days per week), and the sessions were carried out in groups of 4 people. Researchers recorded any adverse effects in each session.EI consisted of 10 min of VR and 35 min of PE, while CI included 10 min of placebo VR and 35 min of PE:For the VR, the participant was placed in a standing position (with an ad-hoc-designed help system) in front of a mirror (upper body) and a screen (lower body) where a video of legs running on a treadmill was projected (eFigure 1). The projected legs were adapted to each subject according to their height and weight, to achieve the maximum similarity to a real mirror therapy effect ensuring that the participants felt the projected legs as their own.For the placebo VR, the set-up and duration were the same as for VR, although videos of landscapes without featuring any type of human or animal movement were projected, since mirror neurons do not report activation in response to the movement of objects [PE: lower-limb exercises were carried out for 35 min, including coordination, strength, balance and stretch exercises (eTable 1). The Borg Scale was used in each session to measure each person’s perception of their effort and exertion, breathlessness, and fatigue during each physical exercise. This scale was shown high reliability (ICC = 0.85-0-91) [