Rehabilitation in Older Adults Affected by Immobility Syndrome, Aided by Virtual Reality Technology: A Narrative Review

Abstract

Individual mobility deficit in older adults induces a variety of medical conditions, diminishing their functional capacity in pursuing activities of daily living. In immobility syndrome patients, such conditions are prone further deterioration through a drastically reduced scope of physical activity, owing mostly to poor self-motivation and the monotonous character of conventional rehabilitation regimens. As evidenced by published research, virtual reality technology solutions in rehabilitation management actually add significantly to patients’ self-motivation, while promoting their active involvement in therapy through visual, auditory, and kinaesthetic stimuli. Effective rehabilitation training aided by virtual reality solutions helps patients acquire specific physical and cognitive skills to be subsequently emulated in the real-world environment. The extra added advantage lies in facilitating such training within patients’ own home environments, combined with online monitoring of their progress, when not personally supervised by a physiotherapist, which also boosts the overall cost effectiveness of the therapeutic management itself. This narrative review appears to be the very first one principally focused on critically comparing individual immobilisation with immobility syndrome, especially through the application of the Authors’ own substantial hands-on therapeutic experience in managing various rehabilitation schemes, specifically aided by diverse virtual reality technology solutions.