Stopped: We recruited stroke patients over 2 years time and only achieved 2 patients per-protocol and 6 intention-to-treat patients. The recruitment rate was thus too low and therefore the study protocol as planned was not feasible.
Hemispatial neglect is a post-stroke condition in which patients fail to detect stimuli presented on the side of space opposite to the damaged brain hemisphere (contralesional space). To date, there is no established effective treatment for this condition. A virtual reality (VR) behavioral training for the attention deficits characteristic of patients with hemispatial neglect was developed. Patients are stimulated in the visual and auditory modality to orient towards the contralesional side and are rewarded for detecting targets on this side in this training. In the current study the researchers aim to answer two main questions: 1) how feasible is a VR game-based intervention in stroke patients? and 2) what is the efficacy of the virtual reality game-based intervention in reducing the attention deficits characteristic of hemispatial neglect? To answer these questions a randomized partially double-blind placebo-controlled crossover study will be conducted. Two within-subject conditions will be compared: in the active condition patients will play a VR game in which multisensory stimulation is progressively presented in the neglected region (the location where previously presented targets were missed by the patient) and in the placebo condition patients will play a VR game in which the stimulation is presented in the center of of the VR environment. Neglect symptoms will be measured on a two-daily basis to establish the trend of symptom recovery through time. The hypothesis states that symptoms will recover more quickly when patients receive the active version of the VR intervention compared to the placebo version of the VR intervention.
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Change in the Posner reaction times
Timeframe: The primary outcome variable is measured at 8 timepoints: First timepoint = Baseline (pre-intervention), Timepoints 2 until 6 = during intervention, Timepoint 7 = immediately after intervention, Timepoint 8 = 1 week after intervention.