Chronic low back pain is a common condition with a major impact on functioning and quality of life. This PhD thesis shows that the use of virtual reality (VR) in physiotherapy is still limited, but that both patients and physiotherapists are generally positive and open to its use. Physiotherapists view VR as an additional tool to enhance treatment. The results of our research suggest that adding VR to physiotherapy may lead to greater improvements in functioning and reductions in pain, although these findings remain uncertain due to the small sample size. Furthermore, this thesis demonstrates that VR research varies considerably in design, outcome measures, and reporting. Therefore, guidelines were developed to improve the reporting of VR interventions. This contributes to clearer and more comparable research and supports the further development of VR in physiotherapy.
Syl Slatman (1993) studied Physiotherapy at Saxion and completed his Master’s in Health Psychology & Technology at the University of Twente. In 2021, he started his PhD research on the use of VR in physiotherapy for patients with chronic low back pain. Currently he works as a researcher at HAN University of Applied Sciences within the Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation Research Group.