EFFECT OF VIRTUAL REALITY ON HAND DYSFUNCTION POST BURN

Background: Severe functional impairments and negative effects on both mental and physical well-being can result from burns to the hands Purpose: is to evaluate the impact of virtual reality in improving ROM, hand function and strength in rehabilitation of burned hand. Subjects and methods: Forty-two patients with (seconddegree) hand burn participated in this study. Their ages range from 20-45 year. Group (A) involved 21 patients was given in Virtual reality (VR)-based rehabilitation plus conventional hand rehabilitation, Group (B) involved 21 patients was given conventional hand rehabilitation only. Patients in Group A were treated for thirty-minutes standard conventional program and thirty-minutes VR-based rehabilitation (leap motion controller) 3 sessions per week for 8 weeks. Patients in group B were given conventional hand rehabilitation (CON) (scar massage, stretching exercises, ROM exercises, strengthening exercises, splint) 3 sessions per week for 8 weeks. Patients in both groups were recruited from merit university outpatients clinic. Initial measurements were taken before the first session, then again after 2 months of treatment. Results: all the ROM of the hand improved markedly post intervention among both groups and most of these improvement were statically significant with(p<0.05) , regarding the hand grip there was a significant improvement among both groups with (p< 0.001) and regarding the hand function there was a significant improvement among both groups with (p< 0.001) Conclusion: VR based rehabilitation has a non- significant effect on improving hand range of motion, hand power and hand function in patients with partial-thickness (second-degree) burn in comparison with conventional hand rehabilitation. despite this ,there was an improvement in each group separately