CLINICAL TRIAL article
Front. Pediatr.
Sec. Pediatric Surgery
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fped.2025.1633310
USE OF VIRTUAL REALITY IN CHILDREN UNDERGOING SURGERY
Provisionally accepted
- 1Hatay Mustafa Kemal University, Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation, Hatay, Türkiye
- 2Hatay Mustafa Kemal Universitesi, Antakya, Türkiye
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Objective: Early mobilization and exercise after surgery are very important to reduce the impact on lung function. The aim of this study was to compare the effects of early mobilization with virtual reality and conventional physiotherapy methods on pulmonary function, dyspnea, exercise capacity, pain, and kinesiophobia in children undergoing surgery.The study included 27 children aged 5-18 years who underwent surgery. Among the children randomly divided into two groups, the control group (n = 14) received physiotherapy for 40 min twice a day for 3 days in the hospital after surgery, and the children were mobilized in and out of bed. In the virtual reality group (n = 13), in addition to physiotherapy practices, children were allowed to play virtual reality games for 20 min twice a day. Respiratory function, exercise capacity, and pain assessment were performed before surgery and before discharge.Results: As a result, there was no difference in dyspnea, exercise capacity, pain, and kinesiophobia in both groups (p > .05). When we analysed the results of pulmonary function tests, we observed that maximum inspiratory pressure increased in both groups, whereas maximum expiratory pressure increased only in the virtual reality group (p = .01).In conclusion, we found that early physiotherapy was effective in the respiratory parameters of children undergoing surgery. Early mobilization with virtual reality improved the maximal expiratory pressure of children undergoing surgery. Thus, the Xbox can serve as an alternative method to facilitate mobilization in children.
Keywords: Child, General Surgery, virtual reality, Physical Therapy, physiotherapy Clinical Trial Number: NCT06882382
Received: 26 May 2025; Accepted: 04 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Bezgin, Hüzmeli, Katayıfçı, Yıldırım and Atıcı. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Sabiha Bezgin, Hatay Mustafa Kemal University, Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation, Hatay, Türkiye
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