Virtual Walking With Habitual Feedback to Reduce Chronic Neuropathic Pain in Individuals With Spinal Cord Injury
About 70% of people with a spinal cord injury in Switzerland have chronic pain that lasts more than 3 to 6 months. This pain can be caused by muscle or joint problems, or by nerve damage (neuropathic pain). Neuropathic pain is often hard to treat, and current treatments may cause side effects or not work well. This study will test whether virtual walking from different visual perspectives can reduce chronic neuropathic pain and improve quality of life after spinal cord injury. We will also compare which perspective works best. To better understand how the training works, we will use two tests-quantitative sensory testing (QST) and contact heat-evoked potentials (CHEPs)-to measure changes in the pain and nerve systems.
• Sufficient knowledge of German language to understand the instructions, assessments and to fill in questionnaires.
• Age ≥ 18y, ≤ 75y
• Chronic traumatic or non-traumatic SCI (\>6 month after SCI) with an SCI severity grade AIS A, B, C or D
• At or below level spinal cord injury neuropathic pain on trunk or lower extremities diagnosed by a neurologist following the ISCIP classification (Bryce et al., 2012) of at least 4/10 intensity on a NRS (Langford et al., 2023)
• Ability to draw with a pen