A Proposed Game for Promoting Physical Activities among People with Low Back Pain using Virtual Reality

Abstract

Low Back Pain (LBP) is one of the most common problems among adults. The usual physiotherapy treatment is to perform physical exercises. However, most of LBP patients do not adhere to their home exercises which might increase their pain and disability. Moreover, some LBP patients have false beliefs regarding their pain and they tend to avoid physical movements. In this paper, we propose a LBP Exercise Game with an immersive experience to engage the patients in a virtual environment and distract them from the pain while performing LBP exercises. This solution will enhance the rehabilitation outcome since the patients who are suffering from LBP can use the system at their home and train more for long period of time using a smartphone and low-cost virtual reality device such as Google Cardboard.