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Feasibility of exergaming for upper extremity rehabilitation in people with multiple sclerosis: prospective clinical trial

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Abstract

Background

Exergaming has been suggested as a rehabilitation method since it is more motivational for people with multiple sclerosis (MS, pwMS). However, the major disadvantage of this method is the lack of specific scenarios designed for pwMS.

Objectives

This study aims to assess the feasibility of exergaming, which was developed for pwMS.

Methods

This unblinded prospective clinical trial was performed in the outpatient MS Clinic of Dokuz Eylül University Hospital. Exergaming scenarios were developed in collaboration with medical personnel consisting of physiotherapists and doctors, and computer engineers. A total of 30 participants who had definite MS diagnoses were included. The exergaming scenarios were implemented using the Microsoft Kinect. A physiotherapist applied custom-made exergames for one session. All the participants were assessed immediately after the session. The User Satisfaction Evaluation Questionnaire was used to assess the user’s satisfaction with the system and exergaming.

Results

The mean age was 41.5, the mean Expanded Disability Status Scale was 4.5 (range between 0 and 7), and the mean disease duration was 10.0 years. Twenty patients were relapsing–remitting, and 10 were secondary-progressive. The mean scores of the User Satisfaction Evaluation Questionnaire were 4.33 (SD = 0.84) for helpfulness for rehabilitation, 1.63 (SD = 1.1) for not disturbing, 4.50 (SD = 1.07) for understandability, 4.0 (SD = 0.91) for easiness to control, and 4.33 (SD = 0.84) for enjoyability.

Conclusion

These results showed that our custom-made exergaming scenario could be feasible in upper extremity rehabilitation in MS. More research is needed to investigate its effectiveness in the rehabilitation of upper limbs.

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Data availability

The authors declare that they have written entirely original work, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others, then this has been appropriately cited or quoted. All data and materials will be furnished upon request.

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Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation, Faculty of Health Sciences,, Van Yüzüncü Yıl University, Van, Turkey

    A. T. Ozdogar, S. Dastan & C. Baba

  2. Department of Computer Engineering,, Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey

    M. Emec

  3. Faculty of Medicine, Department of Neurology, Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, Turkey

    E. Kaya, T. Aslan & S. Ozakbas

  4. Department of Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation, Graduate School of Health Sciences,, Izmir Katip Celebi University, Izmir, Turkey

    H. Karakas

  5. Department of Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation, Faculty of Health Sciences, Izmir Katip Celebi University, Izmir, Turkey

    T. Kahraman

  6. Department of Computer Engineering, Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, Turkey

    M. H. Ozcanhan

Authors
  1. A. T. Ozdogar
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  2. M. Emec
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  3. E. Kaya
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  4. H. Karakas
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  5. S. Dastan
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  6. T. Kahraman
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  7. T. Aslan
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  8. C. Baba
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  9. M. H. Ozcanhan
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  10. S. Ozakbas
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Consortia

Multiple Sclerosis Research Group

Contributions

This is to state that all those who have made substantial contributions are only listed as co-authors including study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Asiye Tuba Ozdogar, Serkan Ozakbas and Mehmet Hilal Ozcanhan. The manuscript draft was written by Asiye Tuba Ozdogar and all authors read and approved the final version of it.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to A. T. Ozdogar.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Ethical approval

The Noninvasive Research Ethics Board of Dokuz Eylül University approved the protocol of this study (Protocol number: GOA-6931 and Approval Number: 2022/14–02) and was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT05420532).

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The well-informed written consent was obtained from the individuals.

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Ozdogar, A.T., Emec, M., Kaya, E. et al. Feasibility of exergaming for upper extremity rehabilitation in people with multiple sclerosis: prospective clinical trial. Acta Neurol Belg (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13760-024-02556-3

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