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. 2022 Nov 10:10:1042618.
doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.1042618. eCollection 2022.

Virtual reality for neurorehabilitation: A bibliometric analysis of knowledge structure and theme trends

Qi-Fan Guo  1   2 , Lin He  1   2 , Wei Su  1   2 , Hui-Xin Tan  1   2 , Lian-Yi Han  3 , Chen-Fan Gui  1   2 , Yi Chen  1   2 , Han-Hong Jiang  1   2 , Qiang Gao  1   2
Affiliations

Virtual reality for neurorehabilitation: A bibliometric analysis of knowledge structure and theme trends

Qi-Fan Guo et al. Front Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: As an emerging technology, virtual reality (VR) has been broadly applied in the medical field, especially in neurorehabilitation. The growing application of VR therapy promotes an increasing amount of clinical studies. In this paper, we present a bibliometric analysis of the existing studies to reveal the current research hotspots and guide future research directions.

Methods: Articles and reviews on the related topic were retrieved from the Science Citation Index Expanded of Web of Science Core Collection database. VOSviewer and Citespace software were applied to systematically analyze information about publications, countries, institutions, authors, journals, citations, and keywords from the included studies.

Results: A total of 1,556 papers published between 1995 and 2021 were identified. The annual number of papers increased gradually over the past three decades, with a peak publication year in 2021 (n = 276). Countries and institutions from North America and Western European were playing leading roles in publications and total citations. Current hotspots were focused on the effectiveness of VR therapy in cognitive and upper limb motor rehabilitation. The clusters of keywords contained the four targeted neurological diseases of VR, while the burst keywords represented that the latest studies were directed toward more defined types of VR therapy and greater study design.

Conclusions: Our study offers information regarding to the current hotspots and emerging trends in the VR for rehabilitation field. It could guide future research and application of VR therapy in neurorehabilitation.

Keywords: bibliometric; hotspots; neurorehabilitation; research trends; virtual reality.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow chart of the bibliometric search and analysis process.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Trend of publication outputs from 1995 to 2021 on VR for neurorehabilitation topic.
Figure 3
Figure 3
The top 14 prolific countries and international collaboration network on VR for neurorehabilitation research. (A) The number of publications, total citations, and citations per paper in the top 14 countries. (B) The co-operative network visualization map of countries.
Figure 4
Figure 4
The top 14 active institutions and the inter-institutional collaboration network on VR for neurorehabilitation research. (A) The number of publications, total citations, and citations per paper in the top 14 institutions. (B) The density visualization map of institutions.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Network map of active authors contributed to VR for neurorehabilitation research.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Co-citation network map of journals.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Analysis of keywords related to publications on VR for neurorehabilitation field. (A) The keyword co-occurrence network map. (B) The keyword cluster map. (C) The top 25 keywords with the strongest citation bursts.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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