Rehabilitation therapy using augmented reality (AR) after shoulder surgery can improve postoperative shoulder pain and quality of life compared to conventional rehabilitation therapy, according to a study.
Professor Shim Ga-yang of the Department of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine at Kyung Hee University Hospital released the results of a study on Monday, showing that digital healthcare rehabilitation using augmented reality significantly improved shoulder pain and quality of life in patients who underwent shoulder surgery.
Degenerative musculoskeletal diseases, which cause pain and dysfunction, are often treated surgically because they cause inconvenience in daily life. Postoperative rehabilitation is important to maximize the effectiveness of treatment. Proper rehabilitation must be performed under the guidance of specialized medical professionals. However, it is difficult for patients to visit the hospital due to their daily lives.
In this study, Professor Shim’s team compared 115 patients who underwent rotator cuff repair, divided into a digital health home rehabilitation group (58 patients) and a traditional rehabilitation group (57 patients), by measuring the Simple Shoulder Test (SST), Shoulder Pain and Disability Index (SPADI), range of motion (ROM), and muscle strength and weakness over four sessions.
The results showed no significant differences in the objective measures of pain, range of motion, strength, and handedness. Still, the patient-reported outcome measurements of shoulder pain and disability index and quality of life scores were significantly higher in the digital health rehabilitation group than in the traditional rehabilitation group. The simple shoulder test showed a 12 percent improvement over the traditional rehabilitation group at 12 weeks postoperatively.
"This study is significant because it shows the feasibility of hospital-based home rehabilitation using digital health. Furthermore, it demonstrates that it is a promising alternative to conventional rehabilitation," Professor Shim said.
The paper, titled "A randomized controlled trial of postoperative rehabilitation using a digital healthcare system after rotator cuff repair," appeared in the 2023 edition of Digital Medicine, a sister journal of Nature.