Efficacy of virtual reality on Health Literacy in patients with stroke: randomized pilot clinical trial

Abstract

Objective

To evaluate the effectiveness of virtual reality on the degree of Health Literacy, before and after the use of virtual reality with the Nintento Switch® device in patients with a diagnosis of stroke admitted to neurorehabilitation units.

Methodology

Twelve patients admitted to a neurorehabilitation unit underwent a 1:3 randomised clinical trial (intervention group: control group). The intervention group consisted of 4 patients and the control group consisted of 8 patients. The control group performed conventional rehabilitation and the intervention group, in addition to conventional rehabilitation, had a 20-min virtual reality intervention once a week for 6 weeks. Clinical outcomes were measured for the literacy variable before the intervention and 6 weeks after the intervention in both the control group and the intervention group.

Results

An improvement in literacy was obtained in the control group (9 vs. 9.38; p = 0.18) and in the intervention group (13.75 vs. 14.25; p = 0.31) after the 6 weeks duration of the study. Comparing the intervention group and the control group, the literacy level of the intervention group was higher after the intervention than in the CG (14.25 vs. 9.38: p = 0.20), but no statistically significant results were obtained.

Conclusion

Virtual reality used together with conventional treatment seems to improve the degree of literacy of stroke patients admitted to neurorehabilitation units.