Learning and transfer of complex motor skills in virtual reality: a perspective review.
Danielle E Levac, Meghan E Huber, Dagmar Sternad
PMID 31627755WHAT IT FOUND
Virtual reality can help people learn complex motor skills, but transfer to real life is inconsistent.
Therapists should watch movement quality in virtual tasks and pair virtual practice with real-world practice.
Key findings
01The review included 46 experimental studies and excluded clinical trials testing virtual reality effectiveness.
02Transfer from virtual to real environments was inconclusive: some studies found no transfer, while a study in Duchenne muscular dystrophy found transfer.
03Virtual environments can reveal how learners manage movement variability, but the review says more work is needed before conclusions about training strategies.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
This is a perspective review, not a trial or meta-analysis, and the authors did not assess study quality. It mostly summarizes experimental studies, many in unimpaired people, so it says little about clinical outcomes in your patients. Transfer findings came from studies with small sample sizes, low practice doses, and short retention intervals. The authors included their own work, which may bias the synthesis. Clinical trials of virtual reality effectiveness were excluded, so it cannot answer whether virtual reality rehabilitation works.
Declared interests
Funded by Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and Charles H. Hood Foundation. The supplied text does not state author conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that virtual reality training reliably transfers to real-life motor function. The review found transfer was inconclusive and often absent, and it did not test clinical effectiveness.