Awarded the National Health and Medical Research Council Grant, Virtual reality-based exercise may offer an opportunity to help people with pain by targeting different contributors to pain. Pilot testing showed manipulating vision using virtual reality during exercise could reduce knee pain and allow people to exercise. Knee pain is a common musculoskeletal complaint, and exercise therapy is a well-established treatment recommendation. Despite this, compliance and adherence to exercise program is a challenge, and furthermore pain is a common barrier to being physically active. This research project therefore aims to evaluate the use and potential benefit of utilising virtual reality glasses for people with knee pain. If successful further researched can explore other pain presentations.

Staff involved: Ebonie Rio, Kay Crossley, Lorimer Mosely (University of SA), Dan Harvie (Bond University) and Ross Smith (UniSA)