Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Jul 9:12:1572464.
doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1572464. eCollection 2025.

Virtual reality for the management of musculoskeletal pain: an umbrella review

Sultan Kalikanov  1 , Aliya Baizhanova  2 , Meiram Tungushpayev  1 , Dmitriy Viderman  2   3
Affiliations

Virtual reality for the management of musculoskeletal pain: an umbrella review

Sultan Kalikanov et al. Front Med (Lausanne). .

Abstract

Background: Musculoskeletal pain (MSK) is a condition that affects multiple parts of the musculoskeletal system, including limbs, neck, and back, leading to deterioration in both mental and physical health and overall quality of life. Despite the available treatments, they are not considered effective enough to eradicate pain symptoms, thereby requiring new methods as a substitute. This review comprehensively summarizes virtual reality (VR) technology as an adjunct or an alternative treatment for MSK pain and aims to explore the most suitable conditions and settings of VR.

Methods: Pubmed, Scopus, and Cochrane databases were searched for recent systematic reviews and meta-analyses investigating VR and MSK pain. The search was performed according to PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines and revealed 17 relevant articles. The AMSTAR-2 (A MeaSurement Tool to Assess systematic Reviews) analysis was conducted to assess the quality of included studies. The Corrected Covered Area was calculated to identify the degree of overlap.

Results: The results found significant pain reduction and mental and physical improvements in patients with MSK pain in comparison to standard therapies in treating neck, knee, and back pain. Nevertheless, the heterogeneity and inconsistencies in results among papers were recognized. The promising aspects are multimodality, namely, VR in combination with exercises, patient acceptance of VR, and the effectiveness of immersive, non-immersive, and gamified versions. These findings also revealed the need for more research on underexplored regions, standardized methodologies, and personalized approaches.

Conclusion: To summarize, VR poses the potential to treat MSK pain as an adjunct, and future research is recommended to focus on improving methodological rigor and multimodal approaches.

Systematic review registration: OSF (https://osf.io/uyc7z).

Keywords: low back pain; musculoskeletal pain; neck pain; pain; virtual reality.

PubMed Disclaimer

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
PRISMA flow diagram.
Figure 2
Figure 2
VR efficacy.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Mechanisms of VR.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. World Health Organization . (2022). Musculoskeletal health. Available online at: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/musculoskeletal-conditions. [Accessed July 14, 2022]
    1. Nakamura M, Toyama Y, Nishiwaki Y, Ushida T. Prevalence and characteristics of chronic musculoskeletal pain in Japan: a second survey of people with or without chronic pain. J Orthop Sci. (2014) 19:339–50. doi: 10.1007/s00776-013-0525-8, PMID: - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. El-Tallawy SN, Nalamasu R, Salem GI, LeQuang JAK, Pergolizzi JV, Christo PJ. Management of Musculoskeletal Pain: an update with emphasis on chronic musculoskeletal pain. Pain Ther. (2021) 10:181–209. doi: 10.1007/s40122-021-00235-2, PMID: - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Sharar SR, Miller W, Teeley A, Soltani M, Hoffman HG, Jensen MP, et al. Applications of virtual reality for pain management in burn-injured patients. Expert Rev Neurother. (2008) 8:1667–74. doi: 10.1586/14737175.8.11.1667, PMID: - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Hoffman HG, Doctor JN, Patterson DR, Carrougher GJ, Furness TA. Virtual reality as an adjunctive pain control during burn wound care in adolescent patients. Pain. (2000) 85:305–9. doi: 10.1016/S0304-3959(99)00275-4, PMID: - DOI - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources