• Vishal Kumar, Arvind Janardhan Vatkar, Mohak Kataria, Sarvdeep Singh Dhatt, and Vishnu Baburaj.
• Department of Orthopaedics, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India.
• Eur Spine J. 2024 Feb 1; 33 (2): 474480474-480.

BackgroundChronic low back ache (CLBA) is a common condition that is conventionally managed with physical therapy and analgesics. Recently, virtual reality-based interventions have been tried out in the management of CLBA. Their effectiveness, however has not been established. This meta-analysis aims to find out if the application of VR will lead to better pain relief, as compared to conventional techniques in adults with CLBA.MethodsThe literature search was carried out in three online databases for potential randomized controlled trials that compared VR-based interventions with conventional treatment in CLBA. Data on outcome parameters were recorded. Meta-analysis was carried out with the help of appropriate software.ResultsSeven studies having data on 507 subjects were included in the meta-analysis. Their mean ages were 48.4 years. There were 252 subjects in the VR group and 255 in the control group. VR-based interventions were found to have a statistically significant improvement in the pain intensity compared with conventional techniques (p - 0.005).ConclusionVR-based interventions are effective in the management of CLBA in the short term. Further research with longer follow-up is required to evaluate if these improvements are persistent in the long term.© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.

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