Impact of an upper limb motion-driven virtual rehabilitation system on residual motor function in patients with complete spinal cord injury： a pilot study.
Yanqing Xiao, Yang Gao, Hongming Bai and 6 others
PMID 40045360WHAT IT FOUND
In 12 people with complete spinal cord injury, a short VR session made lower-limb muscle signals more often clearly tied to ankle movement attempts.
It did not reliably increase how often any muscle signal appeared. This is an assessment effect, not proven recovery.
Key findings
01Repeated EMG bursts that were clearly linked to ankle movement cues were more frequent during and after VR training than before training.
02The overall count of task-related lower-limb EMG activation did not show a statistically significant difference before, during, or after VR.
03A patient still showed EMG activation one week after VR training, and said recalling the VR scenes helped the task.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
The study included only 12 patients with thoracic complete or motor-complete injuries, and the authors state that the small sample limits generalizability. The outcome was EMG activity recorded immediately after a single VR session, not a clinical treatment outcome such as function or lasting recovery. The VR system combined immersive visual feedback, wrist-to-ankle control, and instructed movement imagery, so the contribution of any single component cannot be separated. The paper reports no subjective questionnaire data, although patients gave sporadic self-reports about embodiment and control. The text gives an after-VR task-frequency total of 50, while Table 1 gives 42, so the main count is not internally consistent. Task-frequency changes were not statistically significant, and the significant finding was for the stricter highest-rank activation count. A single patient had follow-up one week later, so the recall finding is one observation.
Declared interests
No competing-interest declaration is given in the supplied text. Funding came from the CAMS Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences, the Beijing Science and Technology Project, and the Open Project Program of State Key Laboratory of Virtual Reality Technology and Systems.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that VR restored ankle movement or produced lasting motor recovery. The study measured surface EMG after a single VR session, not clinical function, and the overall task-frequency changes were not statistically significant.