Patients with back pain benefited from at-home VR program

LAS VEGAS — Patients with chronic low back pain who used the home-based RelieVRx program experienced reduction in pain intensity and interference with activity, sleep, mood and stress, according to a poster presented at PAINWeek 2022.

Todd Maddox, PhD, vice president of research and development at RelieVRx manufacturer, AppliedVR, and colleagues explained in the poster that chronic low back pain is disabling and costly and its prevalence continues to rise. First-line treatments are pain education and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).

RelieVRx is described in the poster as an FDA-approved “immersive, multimodal, skills-based pain self-management virtual reality (VR) program that incorporates evidence-based principles of CBT, mindfulness and pain neuroscience education.”

Study participants included 188 adults (77% women; 91% white; mean age, 51.5 years), with back pain lasting at least 6 months and average pain intensity of at least 4 out of 10. They were randomized to either a 56-day, twice daily VR program with RelieVRx or sham VR, according to the poster.

Researchers observed “clinical meaningful reductions” in pain intensity (42% at end of treatment [EoT], 31% at 6 months post-treatment), pain interference with activity (49% EoT, 35% post-treatment), sleep (52% EoT, 45% post-treatment), mood (56% EoT, 39% post-treatment) and stress (57% EoT, 43% post-treatment).

These reductions were “significantly larger” than those seen in the sham VR group, the researchers said in the poster.

Even 18 months post-treatment, “clinically meaningful reductions” in these variables persisted: 42% for reduction in pain interference with activity, 38% for sleep, 47% for mood and 48% for stress, according to researchers.

“Only pain intensity (26%) did not reach the 30% threshold,” Maddox and colleagues said.

The RelieVRx showed statistically significant results that were durable for 18 months, AppliedVR chief medical officer Charisse Sparks, MD, told Healio.

She explained that the patient rents and returns the VR goggles to a specialty pharmacy. If they have WiFi, adherence data from the session can be sent to the provider; otherwise, it is collected on the device.

The technology currently is in limited distribution, in California, Texas, Arizona and Nevada, Sparks said.

“We’re trying to roll it out right and understand the market in terms of reimbursement,” Sparks said. “We’re in the process of getting commercial reimbursement, then to get Medicare and Medicaid.”

The researchers said in the poster that future research could evaluate the efficacy of a booster regimen of RelieVRx in increasing the degree and duration of the benefits.