Development and face validation of a Virtual Reality Epley Maneuver System (VREMS) for home Epley treatment of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo: A randomized, controlled trial

Publication date: Available online 14 November 2017
Source:American Journal of Otolaryngology
Author(s): Reza Tabanfar, Harley H.L. Chan, Vincent Lin, T. Le, Jonathan C. Irish
PurposeTo develop and validate a smartphone based Virtual Reality Epley Maneuver System (VREMS) for home use.MethodsA smartphone application was designed to produce stereoscopic views of a Virtual Reality (VR) environment, which when viewed after placing a smartphone in a virtual reality headset, allowed the user to be guided step-by-step through the Epley maneuver in a VR environment. Twenty healthy participants were recruited and randomized to undergo either assisted Epleys or self-administered Epleys following reading instructions from an Instructional Handout (IH). All participants were filmed and two expert Otologists reviewed the videos, assigning each participant a score (out of 10) for performance on each step. Participants rated their perceived workload by completing a validated task-load questionnaire (NASA Task Load Index) and averages for both groups were calculated.ResultsTwenty participants were evaluated with average age 26.4±7.12years old in the VREMS group and 26.1±7.72 in the IH group. The VR assisted group achieved an average score of 7.78±0.99 compared to 6.65±1.72 in the IH group. This result was statistically significant with p=0.0001 and side dominance did not appear to play a factor. Analyzing each step of the Epley maneuver demonstrated that assisted Epleys were done more accurately with statically significant results in steps 2–4. Results of the NASA-TLX scores were variable with no significant findings.ConclusionWe have developed and demonstrated face validity for VREMS through our randomized controlled trial. The VREMS platform is promising technology, which may improve the accuracy and effectiveness of home Epley treatments.Level of evidenceN/A.



from ! ORL Sfakianakis via paythelady.61 on Inoreader http://ift.tt/2yJUs2S
via IFTTT